Settlements are careful about the house, the cars, the retirement accounts. Then somebody changes one password and twelve years of photos are gone.
Digital property rarely makes it onto the inventory, because it doesn't feel like property. Some of it is, though — and some of it is just irreplaceable.
Three different piles, three different problems
- Things with actual value. Cryptocurrency and digital wallets, domain names, monetized channels or online shops, gaming inventories that resell, and airline miles or credit card points. If it was acquired during the marriage, it may count as marital property in most states — the same as a bank account.
- Shared accounts and services. Cloud storage, family phone plans, streaming, shared calendars, smart-home and camera systems, password managers. These aren't worth much, but they're tangled, and one of you is the account owner.
- Memories. Photos, videos, voice memos, text threads with the kids. No dollar value. The hardest part of the list anyway.
Inventory before you negotiate
Write down every account either of you uses: what it is, whose name and email it's under, whether it holds money, and what happens to it if that person walks away. Screenshot balances with the date visible.
Crypto is the one people underestimate. There's no bank to send a subpoena to, values swing week to week, and holdings can sit behind a seed phrase nobody else has seen. If you know or suspect it exists, tell your attorney early rather than late.
Points and miles are the opposite problem: usually easy to find, often impossible to split. Most airline and hotel programs restrict transfers or charge a real fee for them, even with a court order. Sometimes the workable answer is offsetting the value somewhere else instead.
Do not log into their accounts. Even if you know the password. Even if you set it up. Accessing a spouse's email, cloud storage, or social accounts without permission can violate federal law — the Stored Communications Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act — and carry civil and criminal exposure. On top of that, anything you find that way is usually unusable in your case and tends to hurt your credibility more than their behavior hurts theirs. If you believe assets are hidden, that's a conversation with your attorney.
Copy the photos now, sort them later
The single most protective thing you can do this week: export a full copy of shared photo and video libraries to a drive or account that is only yours. Don't delete anything from the shared library, and don't lock the other parent out. Just make sure a complete copy exists somewhere that no one else can revoke.
Then handle the plumbing. Split the shared password manager rather than trading a list. Remove yourself from family plans instead of letting them lapse. Change security questions and recovery emails on your own accounts — those recovery paths often still point at your spouse. Turn off location sharing on both sides, and check what your smart-home devices still notify.
The Asset & Property Inventory Worksheet has room for digital holdings alongside the physical ones, and the Post-Divorce Financial Reset Checklist walks through account-by-account cleanup after the paperwork is done. Both are in our Divorce bundle at lumeway.co/templates. They're organizational tools to help you prepare — not legal advice.
You can replace a login. You can't replace the video of her first steps.
This post is for general informational purposes only and is not legal, financial, or tax advice. Property division rules vary by state, and whether a specific digital holding is treated as marital property depends on your circumstances and your state's law. Laws governing account access are complex and enforcement varies. Please consult a licensed attorney in your state before accessing shared accounts, moving digital assets, or agreeing to any division.