LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 740 million members worldwide. As a professional networking and job seeking site, LinkedIn allows you to connect with other professionals in your industry or location. One of the main benefits of LinkedIn is the ability to leverage your network’s connections to find new opportunities, partners, clients and more.
To fully capitalize on the power of your LinkedIn network, you need to be able to easily access and utilize your list of LinkedIn connections. Pulling a list of your LinkedIn contacts allows you to segment and organize your connections for outbound campaigns and initiatives. It also helps you analyze your existing network to identify any gaps.
There are a few different ways to extract your LinkedIn connections into a shareable list. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk through the various methods to pull your LinkedIn contacts along with the pros and cons of each approach.
Why You Should Download Your LinkedIn Contacts
Here are some of the key reasons it’s valuable to download and pull a list of your LinkedIn connections:
Network Segmentation
Downloading your LinkedIn connections allows you to easily segment your network by geography, industry, job function, seniority and more. You can break down a large, unorganized network into smaller lists that are targeted and relevant.
Lead Generation & Prospecting
Your LinkedIn network likely contains leads, prospects and potential partners you could be doing business with. Pulling a list of your connections makes it possible to identify these opportunities and conduct targeted outreach.
Staying in Touch
Rather than manually maintaining a list of your key connections, downloading your LinkedIn list makes it easy to pull in updated contact information. This ensures you have the most up-to-date details to stay in touch with your network.
Network Analysis
Reviewing your entire list of LinkedIn connections enables you to analyze the makeup of your network. You can identify areas of strength as well as any weak points or gaps that need improvement.
Integrations & Automation
Extracting your LinkedIn data makes it possible to integrate it with other tools and platforms. You can sync contacts with your CRM system, email tool or other solutions to enable targeted, automated follow up.
Collaboration
Rather than keeping your LinkedIn network isolated in one profile, downloading a list makes it easy to share and collaborate with colleagues. You can divide and conquer outreach campaigns as a team.
Overall, pulling your LinkedIn contacts gives you greater control over your network. It takes your connections out of the silo of LinkedIn and allows you to maximize their value.
How to Download Your LinkedIn Connections
There are three primary methods to export your LinkedIn connections:
LinkedIn’s Native Download Tool
The simplest way to pull your list of LinkedIn connections is to use LinkedIn’s native data download tool. Here’s how to use it:
- Go to your LinkedIn account settings
- Select “Get a copy of your data”
- Choose which data types you want to download including your connections
- Enter your account password and click “Request archive”
- LinkedIn will email you when the export is ready to download (usually within 24-48 hours)
- The connections will be in a .CSV file that can be opened in Excel or any spreadsheet program
This approach makes it easy to export all your connections with just a few clicks. However, there are some downsides:
- You can only use the tool once every 24 hours so you can’t refresh it frequently
- The export includes all connection data, not just a list of names and profiles
- There is no segmentation or filtering options for the list
Overall, the LinkedIn data download is a useful way to get a comprehensive list of your connections. But it lacks flexibility compared to other methods.
Premium LinkedIn Account + Google Sheets Integration
For LinkedIn users that have a Premium account, an alternative is to integrate your contacts with Google Sheets:
- Make sure you’re logged into both your LinkedIn and Google accounts
- Open Google Sheets and select Add-ons > Get add-ons
- Search for “LinkedIn” and install the LinkedIn Sales Navigator add-on
- Once installed, open a new Sheet and click the LinkedIn icon
- Follow the prompts to connect your accounts and authorize access
- Select the option to “Export LinkedIn connections to a Google Sheet”
This will pull in all your LinkedIn connections organized in a Sheet with columns for name, company, location, profile URL, etc.
The benefits of this method include:
- Real-time synchronization so connections update automatically
- Flexibility to add filters, segments, formulas in Sheets
- Can refresh and re-export data at any time
The tradeoff is needing a Premium LinkedIn account. But for frequent LinkedIn users, the Google Sheets integration is likely worth the paid access.
LinkedIn Contact Extractor Tools
The final option is to use a third-party LinkedIn scraper or extraction tool. Some examples include:
- Octopus CRM: browser extension to export LinkedIn contacts to Excel/CSV
- Dux-Soup: data scraper to extract LinkedIn profiles and connections
- ParseHub: web scraping tool for LinkedIn network extraction
- Phantombuster: API connector able to export LinkedIn connections
These tools provide the ability to scrape your connections based on sophisticated filters and settings. So you can narrow down the list to exactly the types of contacts you need. Most also refresh and incrementally export new connections.
The tradeoff is that setup and configuration can be more complex compared to the native LinkedIn tool. And some scraping tools have limitations or usage caps that make them impractical for large networks.
Other Options for Accessing LinkedIn Contacts
In addition to downloading your full list of connections, LinkedIn also provides some options to access your network contact information individually:
LinkedIn Mobile App
The LinkedIn mobile app for iOS and Android makes it easy to access contacts and their latest contact information. Simply search for connections and tap on their profile to access details like phone number, email address and company address. This provides an easy way to lookup individuals but isn’t practical for your full network.
LinkedIn InMail
With a Premium LinkedIn account, InMail allows you to directly message any of your connections. The InMail message will include the person’s private contact information so you can reach them outside of LinkedIn. Again, this works on a per-person basis but doesn’t let you export your whole connections list.
LinkedIn Introductions
Similar to InMail, LinkedIn Introductions enable you to be introduced to a 2nd-degree connection through a mutual contact. This will share private contact information of the 2nd-degree connection with you. Useful for accessing select contacts but not a full list.
LinkedIn Recruiter
LinkedIn Recruiter is LinkedIn’s premium talent sourcing tool for recruiters and HR professionals. It provides greater visibility into LinkedIn profiles beyond just your connections. This expanded access can be useful depending on your use case but comes at a steep premium plan cost.
Important Considerations When Downloading LinkedIn Contacts
While accessing your network connections can provide many benefits, there are also some important considerations to keep in mind:
Privacy
Respect the privacy of your connections. Only download the essential contact details needed for your purpose, and be transparent in how you plan to use the data.
Permissions
Ensure you have the appropriate permissions, licenses or type of LinkedIn account to legally download the data. Avoid violating LinkedIn’s terms of service.
Manual Updating
Downloaded connection data can quickly become out-of-date as people change jobs and contact info. Consider a way to manually or automatically sync your list.
Relevance
Not all connections are created equal. Consider filtering and segmenting your list to focus only on key contacts relevant to your goals.
Contact in Context
When reaching out to connections, personalize your communication and add context. Avoid spamming your network with batch outreach emails.
LinkedIn Limits
Be mindful of usage limits on LinkedIn APIs and number of InMail messages you can send. Sending bulk emails could get your account flagged.
By keeping these tips in mind and using the right approach, you can securely access your LinkedIn contacts to maximize the value of your professional network.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I export my LinkedIn contacts to Outlook?
Yes, once you download your LinkedIn connections as a CSV file, you can easily import them into your Outlook contacts list. Simply select Import Contacts in Outlook and choose the CSV. This will add all your LinkedIn connections right into your Outlook address book.
Is there a limit to how many LinkedIn connections I can export?
Most methods allow you to export your full list of LinkedIn connections regardless of size. The exception is LinkedIn’s own data export tool which has a limit of 50,000 contacts per download. For networks larger than 50k connections, you would need to use a third-party scraping solution without limits.
Can I automate regular downloads of my updated LinkedIn contacts?
Yes, it is possible to setup an automated process to periodically download an updated list of your LinkedIn connections. This could involve scheduling the LinkedIn data export tool to run daily or integrating your contacts list with a CRM platform that supports automated LinkedIn syncs such as Salesforce.
What’s the best method for downloading my LinkedIn network?
The “best” method depends on your specific needs and priorities. For simple, periodic downloads, the native LinkedIn tool is best. For real-time sync and integration with other software, the Google Sheets method works well. And for more advanced filtering and segmentation, third-party scraping tools provide the most customization options.
Is scraping LinkedIn connections against LinkedIn’s terms of service?
It depends on how the scraping is implemented – whether you are circumventing any technical measures implemented by LinkedIn or exceeding reasonable usage limits. Confirm the tool you use follows proper practices like respecting robots.txt. In general, downloading your own connections in moderation is permitted by LinkedIn.
Conclusion
Your LinkedIn network is a valuable professional asset. But to fully realize its potential, you need to be able to easily access your list of LinkedIn connections outside of LinkedIn. By using the native LinkedIn export option, Google Sheets integration, or a scraping tool, you can download your network contacts for segmentation, analysis and outreach.
Carefully managing your downloaded list with respect to privacy and permissions allows you to maximize its impact. With your LinkedIn connections in hand, you can more effectively collaborate with colleagues, identify new opportunities and strengthen relationships.
| Method | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| LinkedIn Export |
|
|
| Google Sheets |
|
|
| Scraping Tools |
|
|
