Many people have several emails, so it is important to know just which ones need to be deleted, and just how you go about doing so. For those who have been left details or can guess the users password, it is much easier to close an account. This also allows you to obtain any important information that you may need. All email providers won’t be able to provide login details to an account, so full closure is the only way of ensuring the email is completely gone and not at any sort of risk from hackers or the like.

There is some basic information you will need to know if you want to get an email account closed. Firstly, it may seem obvious but you will need the deceased email accounts that you want closed. Every company will require you to give this to establish the account in question, simply telling them their name won’t suffice. Expect this from every email provider; it’s all part of their private policies, as is much of the protocol that is needed.

A death certificate will almost always be needed; it’s one of the few methods of concrete evidence that this person is in fact deceased, without it you can expect your attempts to be met with failure. If you are a friend of the deceased and doing it as a proxy, you will still want to ensure you have the death certificate.

Identification is also a must. This means that you will need government issued ID, such as a drivers licence or passport. These will never have to be physically sent away, as scanned images are generally accepted. Otherwise fax a copy or get a printed copy that can be mailed to the required company, with the likes of Microsoft’s outlook accepting either.

It all depends on who the email accounts are with. For most, simple online documents are enough to satisfy any queries. The likes of Google mail and Microsoft are examples of this. Yahoo requires an actual written letter with certain documents. AOL can be done via a phone call, so the specifics vary from each provider.

One thing you can be sure of is that you will need to offer a fair amount of information not just on the deceased but one yourself too. Now most won’t allow friends to delete an account, it tends to have to be verified family members. How you verify yourself varies from each provider, but generally ID is a must. Home address, email address and relation to the deceased are all pieces of information that are essential no matter the email provider.

It is advised that you contact each of the necessary providers, as they all have slightly different approaches. As long as you have a rough idea of the basic that are essential no matter where you are will make the process less stressful and tedious, which is the last thing anyone wants when dealing with a bereavement.