Dear Geek,
My Mother just passed away, and because she was a big person for keeping in contact with everyone in the family, she had everything from email to a Facebook account. I left her Facebook all of her online stuff for a bit, but I am wanting to take it down now and have some closure. Is there any way to de-activate this stuff?
Sincerely,
Wanting closure
Dear closure,
We are sorry for you loss, and yes, although leaving a Facebook page up for a while can help with some of the emotion, taking it down after a while often helps with closure.
Because many people save their passwords and usernames on their computers, the first step would be to log into their computer user and access their account and either modify it or delete it. If they have a password on their computer, or their user, this may not be a good option for you. You can use the password hint to help figure it out, but if you still can’t get it, there will be ways to delete the user from an administrator account (if it’s a shared computer).
If you have access to the person’s email account, you can use the “lost password” feature on most websites, including Facebook and YouTube.
Many websites also have pages to report the account of the deceased person:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/305593649477238
Gmail
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/14300?hl=en
World of Warcraft
https://us.battle.net/support/en/
Any other accounts can be removed by contacting a support person on their support page.
Email accounts such as Gmail accounts of Hotmail accounts will also expire after not being used for a year. So you can also let these expire, it’s one less thing to worry about.
If you have a question for our Resident Geek, send it to: geek@tbyd.ca.
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Call 1-204-800-3166
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