Having a copy of your LinkedIn data can be useful for many reasons. You may want to review your data for accuracy, migrate it to another platform, or use it for analysis. LinkedIn makes it easy to download a copy of your data, with just a few clicks. In this article, we’ll walk through the step-by-step process of downloading your LinkedIn data.
What data can I download from LinkedIn?
LinkedIn allows you to download a copy of most of the data associated with your account. This includes information you’ve added to your profile, as well as data generated from your activity on LinkedIn. Specifically, you can download:
- Profile information – Your name, photo, headline, summary, experience, education, skills, accomplishments, interests, publications, certifications, courses, volunteering, test scores, and more.
- Connections – Your 1st-degree connections along with shared connections.
- Messages – InMail messages and conversations with connections.
- Ads -Ads you’ve clicked on, ads you’ve created, and information used to target ads to you.
- Groups – Groups you are a member of or follow.
- Companies – Companies you follow.
- Posts and activity – Your posts, comments, shares, likes, follows, and poll votes.
- Search history – Record of your searches on LinkedIn.
- Job information – Jobs you’ve viewed or applied to.
- Learning history – Courses and learning content you’ve viewed.
- Invitations – Invitations sent to you by other members.
- Pages and news – News articles you’ve read and pages you’ve visited.
As you can see, the download includes a very comprehensive snapshot of your presence and engagement on LinkedIn. This can be great for analyzing your LinkedIn habits and effectiveness.
How to request your LinkedIn data
Requesting your LinkedIn data is a simple process that only takes a few minutes. Here are the steps:
- Log into your LinkedIn account on the web (you can’t request data from the mobile app).
- Go to your account settings by clicking on the “Me” icon at the top of your homepage. Then click “Settings & Privacy”.
- On the left side of the page, click “Get a copy of your data”.
- On the Get a copy of your data page, click the “Request archive” button.
- On the Request archive popup, select the types of data you want to download. By default, all data types are selected.
- Click the “Request archive” button.
- LinkedIn will start compiling your archive. You will get notified via email when your archive is ready to download.
The whole process takes just a minute or two. After you submit the request, LinkedIn estimates it can take up to 72 hours to compile and process all your data. However, in most cases, it will be ready much sooner than that.
How to download your data archive
Once LinkedIn has prepared your archive, you will receive an email notification that it is ready to download. Here is how to access and download it:
- Open the email from LinkedIn and click the “Download your archive” button.
- Log into your LinkedIn account in the browser if prompted.
- Your archive will automatically start downloading in .zip format. The size depends on how much data is in your account.
- When the download completes, unzip the archive folder on your computer.
- The unzipped folder will contain your LinkedIn data, organized into subfolders for each data type.
And that’s it! You now have a copy of your LinkedIn data downloaded onto your computer that you can access offline. LinkedIn only allows you to download your archive once every 24 hours. So if you need multiple copies, you’ll have to wait a day between each download request.
What’s included in your LinkedIn data archive
When you unzip your LinkedIn data archive, it contains a series of JSON files organized into folders. Here’s an overview of what you’ll find in each folder:
Profile
Contains all the data from your LinkedIn profile, including:
- General profile info – Your name, photo, headline, summary, etc.
- Experience – Details on your work history.
- Education – Your listed degrees and schools.
- Skills – Skills you’ve added to your profile.
- Accomplishments – Honors and awards.
- Interests – Your listed hobbies and interests.
- Publications – Books, articles, and other publications.
- Certifications – Your professional certifications.
- Courses – Courses you’ve completed.
- Volunteering – Your volunteer work and causes.
- Test scores – SAT, GRE, or other test scores.
- Projects – Details on projects in your profile.
- Languages – Languages you’ve listed in your skills.
- Recommendations – Recommendations you’ve received from others.
Connections
Includes data on your 1st-degree connections:
- List of 1st-degree connections
- How you’re connected to each connection
- Info on shared connections for each connection
Messages
Your LinkedIn messages, including:
- InMail conversations
- Regular LinkedIn messages with connections
Ads
Data on the ads you’ve interacted with:
- Ads you’ve clicked
- Ads you created as a sponsor
- Interest categories used for targeting ads to you
Groups
Your LinkedIn group activity:
- Groups you’ve joined or follow
- Your roles and positions in each group
Companies
Companies you follow on LinkedIn.
Posts and Activity
Your engagement on LinkedIn, including:
- Your posts, articles, videos, images
- Comments you’ve made
- Content you’ve liked
- People and companies you follow
- Poll votes
- Content you’ve shared
Job Search
Info on your job hunting activity:
- Jobs you’ve viewed
- Jobs you’ve applied to
- Salaries for positions you’ve viewed
- Skills and titles you’ve searched for
Learning
Details on the courses and learning content you’ve used.
Invitations
Invitations sent to you by other members.
Pages and News
Includes:
- Pages you’ve visited
- News articles you’ve read
Additional Info
Some additional account details:
- Basic account info
- Emails associated with your account
- Devices used to access LinkedIn
How to interpret and use your LinkedIn data
Once you’ve downloaded your LinkedIn archive, what can you do with it? Here are some ideas for putting that data to use:
Review and update your profile
Analyze the profile data to see how your profile is representing you. Look for any incorrect or outdated info that needs to be updated.
Reflect on your network
Review your connections and groups. Think about ways to cull inactive connections or expand your network in key areas.
Evaluate your engagement
See how much you’re interacting on LinkedIn by looking at posts, likes, and comments. Assess the quality of your participation.
Review job search history
Look at your job searching activity to optimize future hunting. Identify employers you’re interested in and skills to emphasize.
Track your learning
See all the courses and learning content you’ve accessed. Identify knowledge gaps to fill.
Migrate data to another network
If you want to leave LinkedIn, you can transfer key parts of your profile to another professional network.
Perform analysis for business
If you use LinkedIn for business, analyze your data for insights to improve your marketing and recruiting.
Delete old messages
You can delete outdated conversations that you no longer need cluttering up your inbox.
How to request your data if you closed your account
If you’ve closed your LinkedIn account, you can still request an archive of your data for up to 30 days after closure. Here’s how:
- Go to the LinkedIn Closed account data page.
- Enter the email address associated with your closed account.
- Click the “Request archive” button.
- Check the email account for a message from LinkedIn with a link to download your data.
Follow the link in that email within 24 hours to download your archive. Note that you can only make this request once after closing an account.
How often can I download my LinkedIn data?
LinkedIn limits how often you can download your account archive:
- You can request your data once per day, up to 5 times per month.
- There must be at least 24 hours between download requests.
If you’ve reached your monthly limit, you’ll have to wait until the next month to download your data again.
Does downloading data impact my account?
Requesting and downloading your LinkedIn data has no impact on your account performance. It doesn’t affect your profile visibility, search rankings, recommendations, or how you appear in other users’ feeds.
You’ll continue to operate as normal while your archive is compiling. And others will not be notified when you download your data. It’s a completely private process.
The download also does not remove any data from your account – it simply copies the data for your records. Your LinkedIn profile remains intact and unchanged.
In Closing
Downloading your LinkedIn data is a fast and simple way to get a digital copy of your networking presence for various purposes. With just a few clicks, you can compile your profile, connections, messages, posts, job search history, and more. Analyzing this archive provides valuable insights to optimize your LinkedIn approach. So if you haven’t already, take a few minutes to collect your LinkedIn data – you may be surprised at just how much is available at your fingertips.
