A digital go-bag is a small kit — usually one encrypted USB drive plus a paper sheet — holding copies of your identity documents, key contacts, account recovery codes, and critical files, ready to grab in an evacuation or major outage. You can build one in about 30 minutes.
The 30-minute build
Minutes 0–10: scan or photograph IDs, passports, medical info, insurance, and proof of address into one folder. 10–20: export password-manager emergency access and two-factor recovery codes. 20–30: encrypt the folder onto a USB drive (VeraCrypt or built-in OS encryption) and write the essential phone numbers on paper — because a dead phone erases everyone's memory.
Where it lives
One copy in the physical go-bag, one off-site — the same separation logic as the 3-2-1 rule. For the permanent version, an air-gapped vault is the go-bag that never leaves home.
FAQ
Cloud instead of USB? Cloud helps, but outages and locked accounts are exactly the scenario — carry the offline copy too.
What about the rest of the plan — power, comms, water? The digital go-bag is one checklist inside the full grid-down system: The Grid-Down Playbook.