Receiving a Delivery
Beneficiaries
Beneficiaries are the people your files, notes, and messages go to if a deadman switch fires. Here's how to add one, attach them to a switch, and control exactly what they get.
Adding a beneficiary
Beneficiaries live on your Beneficiaries page (sign in first — this is an account-level contact list, separate from any one switch). To add one:
- Go to Beneficiaries and click Add Beneficiary.
- Enter their email address — required, since it's how they're identified and how delivery is sent.
- Add their full name — required for new beneficiaries, so witnesses and audit trails can identify who received what.
- Optionally add a phone number — only needed if you want them to also get an SMS when a switch fires.
- Optionally set a relationship (spouse, child, lawyer, and so on) to keep your list organized.
You can add a beneficiary from this page ahead of time, or on the fly while setting up a switch — typing a new email into the beneficiary picker there offers to add it as a beneficiary in the same step.
Attaching beneficiaries to a switch
A beneficiary isn't attached to anything until you add them to a specific deadman switch. Each switch has its own beneficiary list, so you can send different items to different people — a lawyer might only be on your estate-documents switch, while your spouse is on all of them.
On a switch's setup page, use the beneficiary picker to search your existing contacts or type a new email. Once added, each beneficiary on that switch is one of two roles:
Recipient
Receives encrypted access to the items on that switch when it fires — this is the default.
Witness (notify-only)
Told that the switch fired and shown what was transferred, but never receives access to any files — useful as an audit trail (a lawyer or executor who should know the transfer happened without seeing the contents).
You can also choose whether Witnesses see who the items went to, or just what was sent — see the deadman switch's own reveal-recipients setting on the Deadman Switches guide for the full breakdown of switch configuration, including delete-only switches (where beneficiaries are optional and only ever act as Witnesses, since there's nothing left to hand over).
What beneficiaries receive
When a switch fires, Recipients get an email (and an SMS, if they have a phone number on file) with secure links to view or download whatever was on that switch — no Killswitch account or login required on their end. Witnesses get a similar email confirming the transfer happened, without any access links.
See exactly what a beneficiary receives and how they access it →Editing, revoking, and removing
From your Beneficiaries page you can:
- Edit a beneficiary's name, email, phone, or relationship at any time.
- Revoke all access — immediately invalidates any active share links you've sent that beneficiary directly (this does not remove them from your switches).
- Delete a beneficiary — removes them from your contact list and from every switch they were attached to. Any share links already sent stay active; use Revoke all access first if you also want to cut off existing links.
Ready to set someone up?
Add your first beneficiary, then attach them to a switch on the Deadman Switches guide.
Go to Beneficiaries