Can I recover my old LinkedIn account?

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 740 million members worldwide. As one of the most popular social media platforms for establishing professional connections and finding job opportunities, most professionals have a LinkedIn account. However, sometimes people may lose access to their old LinkedIn accounts due to reasons like forgotten passwords, deactivated accounts, hacked accounts, etc. The good news is that in most cases, you can recover your old LinkedIn account by following some simple steps.

Why You May Want To Recover Your Old LinkedIn Account

Here are some common reasons why you may want to recover access to your old LinkedIn account:

• You have an established network of professional connections on your old profile that you want to reconnect with. Recovering the account allows you to revive those connections.
• Your old profile has all your work and education history already filled out. Creating a new profile means having to build it from scratch.
• Any recommendations, endorsements or plaudits you previously received from your network will be present on the old profile.
• You want access to conversations and messages you previously had with your connections.
• Losing access to your original profile may look suspicious to some of your connections.
• If you used your LinkedIn for job searching and applications, you may miss out on opportunities if recruiters can no longer find your old profile.
• You want to maintain continuity for your personal brand and professional reputation.

Maintaining access to your established, original LinkedIn profile has many benefits compared to creating a brand new account.

Requirements For Recovering Your LinkedIn Account

To recover your old LinkedIn account, there are a few requirements:

• You must have the correct email address that was associated with the old LinkedIn account. This is necessary for receiving password reset emails from LinkedIn.
• You need to remember some basic information about the account such as your name, current job title, company, etc. LinkedIn will prompt you for this info to verify account ownership.
• You must be able to access the email inbox for the account’s email address. LinkedIn will send password reset instructions to this email.
• You should know the approximate timeframe in which the account was created. LinkedIn asks for this to confirm your identity.
• You must be able to successfully answer any security questions prompted by LinkedIn to prove you are the account owner.

As long as you fulfill these requirements, you should be able to recover and regain access to your old LinkedIn profile.

Steps To Recover Your Lost LinkedIn Account

Here are the detailed steps to recover your previous LinkedIn profile:

1. Go to LinkedIn.com and click on “Forgot password?” on the login page.
2. Enter the email address your old account was registered with and click “Continue”.
3. LinkedIn will prompt you to verify if this email address belongs to you. Complete any email or phone verification steps.
4. Next, LinkedIn will ask you for some basic information about the account to confirm you are the account owner. Provide details like your name, current job title and company.
5. Select if you want the password reset link sent to your email address or mobile number.
6. Check the email inbox or phone number you provided. There will be a password reset link from LinkedIn.
7. Click on the reset password link in the email/text and create a new password for your account.
8. Log in to your LinkedIn account with your email and newly created password.

If you follow these steps correctly, you should now have access to your old LinkedIn profile again.

Troubleshooting Tips

Here are some troubleshooting tips if you encounter issues while trying to recover your old account:

• If you no longer have access to the registered email, try account recovery options indicating you can no longer access the email.
• If you don’t remember security questions, select “I don’t know the answers” and follow prompts to verify identity.
• If prompted for your profile URL but don’t remember, go to LinkedIn.com/pub and it will show your profile URL.
• Still can’t get the password reset email? Check spam folders or use LinkedIn Help Center to contact customer support.
• Getting account recovery errors? Try using a different device or browser.

Following these troubleshooting tips should help resolve most common account recovery issues.

What To Do If You Can’t Recover Your Old LinkedIn Account

In some rare cases, you may not be able to recover your old LinkedIn account if you cannot fulfill the account recovery requirements. For example:

• You no longer have access to the registered email and don’t remember security questions.
• You have limited info about the account and cannot verify identity.
• The account was hacked and email/password changed by the hacker.
• You have completely forgotten the credentials with no way to reset password.

If you have tried all account recovery options extensively but are still locked out, then your last resort would be to create a new LinkedIn profile. Here are some tips to minimize disruption:

• Choose a profile photo that looks similar to your old account so connections recognize you.
• Customize your new profile URL so it is easy for others to find you.
• In background summary, indicate this was your previous profile that you could not recover.
• Search for your connections and send new connection requests explaining what happened.
• Export data from your old profile and import it into the new account.

While inconvenient, creating a new profile and re-establishing your network is the only option if you have exhausted all account recovery options for your old LinkedIn account.

How To Prevent Needing To Recover Your LinkedIn Account In The Future

Once you have access to your LinkedIn account again, take steps to prevent being locked out in the future:

• Update the account email to your current, active email you check regularly.
• Set a strong password that is unique from other accounts.
• Enable two-factor authentication for extra security.
• Review and update your security questions with answers you won’t forget.
• Check your LinkedIn activity regularly for unauthorized access.
• Remove any suspicious connected apps or third-party integrations.
• Be cautious of potential phishing attempts targeting your LinkedIn.

Taking these preventative measures will minimize the chances of you getting locked out of your LinkedIn account again in the future.

Conclusion

Losing access to your old LinkedIn account can be a huge inconvenience but in most cases, you can recover your previous profile by resetting the password. Make sure to have the right registered email address and fulfill LinkedIn’s identity verification steps during account recovery. If you follow the step-by-step instructions, you should be able to regain access to your original account with your connections and profile details intact. Take preventative measures so you never have to recover your LinkedIn account again.

Troubleshooting Tips

Prevent future lockouts