To report a deceased user’s account, open the Instagram memorialization request form in the Help Center at help.instagram.com, enter the person’s username, paste a link to an obituary or news article as proof of death, and submit. The whole process is online. Nothing has to be mailed, signed, or notarized.1Meta. Report a Deceased Person’s Profile on Instagram
Who Can Submit the Request
You do not have to be family. A friend, coworker, classmate, or relative can submit the memorialization form, as long as they can provide proof the person has died.1Meta. Report a Deceased Person’s Profile on Instagram
Deletion is different. Only verified immediate family members can request that the account be removed entirely rather than memorialized.1Meta. Report a Deceased Person’s Profile on Instagram If you are not immediate family, memorialization is the only path open to you through this form.
What to Have Ready Before You Open the Form
You cannot save a partial submission, so collect everything before you start.
- The deceased person’s exact Instagram username. Visit the profile and copy the @handle directly if you are unsure of the spelling.
- A link to an obituary or news article that names the person and confirms the death. Instagram’s published guidance points to an obituary or news article as the expected proof.1Meta. Report a Deceased Person’s Profile on Instagram
- A working email address where Instagram can reach you about the request.
- Your relationship to the person. The form asks how you knew them, which helps Instagram sort requests if a family member later submits a conflicting one.
Check that the obituary link is publicly viewable. Some funeral home sites paywall obituaries or take them down after a set period, and if the link breaks before Instagram reviews the submission, the request can stall.
Filling Out and Submitting the Form
Go to help.instagram.com and search for “memorialization” or “report a deceased person’s profile.” The form link appears at the top of the results.1Meta. Report a Deceased Person’s Profile on Instagram You do not need to be logged into Instagram to open it, which helps if you do not use the platform yourself.
The form is a single page. Enter the person’s full legal name as it appeared in life, their Instagram username, and the proof of death as a URL. Add your own name, your email, and your relationship to the person. Review every field before you submit, especially the username — one wrong character sends the request at the wrong account.
You should see an on-screen confirmation that the submission went through. If you hit an error, wait a few minutes and try again.
After You Submit
Instagram reviews the proof of death and checks it against the account. The platform does not publish a processing timeline. Some requests resolve within days, others take longer, especially when the name in the obituary does not clearly match the name on the account.
If the request is approved, the account is converted to memorialized status and you receive an email confirmation. If it is denied, the notice usually names the reason — commonly insufficient documentation or a name mismatch. You can resubmit with corrected or additional documentation. There is no formal appeal beyond resubmitting.
What a Memorialized Profile Looks Like
A memorialized account is not the same as a deleted one, and it is not the same as a live account either.
- The word “Remembering” appears next to the person’s name on the profile.2Meta. About Memorialized Instagram Profiles
- No one can log in, even with the correct password.2Meta. About Memorialized Instagram Profiles
- Privacy settings freeze where the person left them. A private account stays private; a public account stays public.2Meta. About Memorialized Instagram Profiles
- Posts, photos, and videos stay visible to the audience they were originally shared with. No new content can be added, and existing content cannot be edited or removed unless a legacy contact was designated before death.
Requesting Removal Instead
If the family would rather have the profile deleted than preserved, an immediate family member can submit a separate removal request through the same Help Center section.1Meta. Report a Deceased Person’s Profile on Instagram Removal erases everything. Posts, followers, comments, and direct messages are gone and cannot be recovered.
The removal form requires proof of your relationship to the deceased on top of proof of death. Instagram may ask for a birth or death certificate showing the relationship, or a power of attorney. Because deletion is irreversible, it is worth discussing among family before anyone submits.
Legacy Contact: Only Useful If Set Up in Advance
Instagram lets account holders designate a legacy contact who can manage the profile after memorialization — responding to follow requests, pinning a tribute post, or updating the profile photo.3Meta. About Legacy Contacts on Instagram This has to be set up by the account holder while they are alive, through Instagram’s settings. Once an account is memorialized without a legacy contact, no one, including a spouse or parent, can make changes to it.2Meta. About Memorialized Instagram Profiles If the person has already passed, this option is closed for their account, but it may be worth setting up on your own.
What the Form Does Not Give You
Memorialization handles the public-facing profile only. It does not give anyone access to direct messages, login credentials, or draft content. If an estate representative needs private data from the account, that is a separate legal question governed by state digital-asset laws and Instagram’s terms of service, and a probate attorney familiar with digital assets is the right place to start.