Where your online will lives, and who can delete it: storage and access rules, quoted

Online will services make it feel as though your will lives in your account. You log in, there it is. But the will that counts in court is the paper you signed, and what happens to the account over the years is governed by terms most people never read. Some of those terms are blunt about it.

This page quotes the storage and access rules of the main services, from their own pages and terms, read on the date in the facts tables. It carries no affiliate links and recommends nothing.

What each service says about your documents

Service	What its own pages say
Rocket Lawyer	Storage: The terms say Rocket Lawyer is not liable for deleting or failing to store your documents. After cancelling: Documents you made stay available in your account, but you cannot make new ones
LawDepot	After cancelling: May be deleted after cancellation; later access may require a fee. Trial documents: Not for new transactions starting one month after your access ends
GoodTrust	Editing and downloading: Needs an active subscription. After a refund: Account drops to the Free plan; the will can no longer be downloaded
Quicken WillMaker & Trust	Online: Make and revise for 1 year; documents viewable 90 days after. Download: Use indefinitely; legal and technical updates for 1 year
Trust & Will	The free tier keeps your digital download; editing needs the membership
FreeWill	Its help centre says FreeWill does not store or maintain copies of your documents

Three things stand out.

Some services say outright that storage is not guaranteed. Rocket Lawyer’s terms are the clearest example. LawDepot’s allow deletion after you cancel and say later access may cost a fee. These clauses are common in software terms. They are also a plain statement that the account is not a vault.

Some services gate downloads, not just editing. At GoodTrust, downloading your own documents needs an active subscription. At WillMaker’s online version, documents become unavailable 90 days after the revision year unless you renew. Trust & Will, by contrast, keeps the download on its free tier.

FreeWill does not pretend to store anything. Its help centre says it does not store or maintain copies of your documents. Your answers stay in your account for editing, but the document is yours to keep.

Why this matters less than it seems, and more

Less, because a will is valid because you signed it, in front of witnesses, as your state requires. Deleting the file in an account does not touch the signed original.

More, because people often treat the account as the copy they will go back to, and do not keep their own. If the account is gone and the signed original is lost, your family may have nothing. In some states, a will that cannot be found where you kept it can even be presumed revoked.

The three copies everyone should have

1. The signed original, stored safely, in a place your executor knows about.
2. A scan of the signed original, marked as a copy, stored where you control it: your own computer, cloud storage, or with a family member.
3. The editable file, downloaded in every format the service offers, so you can make a new version later without depending on the account.

Before you cancel, or stop paying, anything

1. Download every document in every format offered.
2. Check you have the signed originals of everything that needed signing.
3. Save your account details somewhere your executor can find them, if the account holds anything else, such as a digital vault.
4. Then cancel, and keep the confirmation.

Tell your executor

The best-drafted will is useless if nobody can find it. Tell your executor where the original is, and keep a short note with it listing your other documents: power of attorney, health care directive, trust, and where each is kept. If you made a trust, add the funding record; our page on unfunded trusts explains why.

Related: the renewals that often decide whether you keep access are covered in our page on auto-renewal patterns.