How do I view browsing history on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is one of the most popular professional social networking sites, with over 800 million users worldwide. As a robust platform for establishing connections, networking, and searching for jobs, LinkedIn contains a wealth of browsing data based on your activity. Fortunately, LinkedIn provides simple methods for viewing your complete browsing history across the site. Here’s a quick rundown of how to view browsing history on LinkedIn.

Viewing Full Browsing History

LinkedIn stores your browsing history and makes it viewable through your account settings. Here are the steps to access your full browsing history on LinkedIn:

1. Log into your LinkedIn account on the website (not the mobile app).
2. Click on the “Me” icon at the top of your homepage. This will bring up your account menu.
3. Select “Settings & Privacy” from the menu.
4. Go to the “How LinkedIn uses your data” section.
5. Click on “View your browsing history”.

This will display your full browsing history in an interactive timeline going back to when you first started using LinkedIn. You’ll be able to see:

• Every profile, page, group, and other content you’ve visited.
• Search terms used.
• Ads and sponsored content you’ve clicked on.
• Filtered views of your history by date range, content type, search terms, and more.

Reviewing your complete history gives you a data-driven retrospect of your activity on LinkedIn. It can show you how much time you’re spending on the platform, profiles and companies you interact with frequently, and the kind of content drawing your clicks. This transparency into your browsing behavior can help inform how to use LinkedIn more productively.

Filtering Browsing History

LinkedIn’s browsing history page has built-in filters that allow drilling down into specific subsets of your activity. To filter your history:

1. Follow steps 1-5 above to access browsing history.
2. Click “Filters” at the top of the history page.
3. Choose filters for time range, content type, searches, and other categories.
4. Click “Apply” to view your filtered history.

Handy filters include:

• Timeframe – View history for specific date ranges.
• Content interactions – See only pages visited, searches, articles read, etc.
• Content types – View groups, profiles, ads, InMail, jobs, etc.
• Companies – See visits to specific company pages.
• Profiles – View history for individual profile visits.
• Searches – See only pages visited from specific searches.

Filtered views help zero in on relevant parts of your browsing history. For example, filtering to a date range can show a history of your activity researching a certain company before an interview. Search filters reveal which keywords surface the profiles and content you engaged most with. The filters transform browsing history from a data dump to an analysis tool.

Clearing Browsing History

If you want to purge your LinkedIn browsing history, you can clear it through the privacy settings. Here’s how to clear your browsing history on LinkedIn:

1. Go to your account Settings & Privacy.
2. Select “How LinkedIn uses your data”.
3. Click on “Clear browsing history”.
4. Confirm that you want to permanently delete your entire browsing history.

Once cleared, your LinkedIn browsing history cannot be recovered. You’ll start fresh with a new empty history. Clearing your history can be useful as a privacy measure before job searches or other sensitive research activities on LinkedIn.

Viewing Browsing History on Mobile

The LinkedIn mobile app does not contain settings to directly view your full browsing history. However, you can look up your recent profile views and searches using the mobile app:

1. Open the LinkedIn app on your device.
2. Tap your profile picture in the top left.
3. Select “View profile” to open your public profile.
4. Scroll down and tap on “See all” under “Who’s viewed your profile?” to see recent visitors.
5. Tap the search bar at the top and select “Search history” to view recent searches.

While not comprehensive, these features provide some insight into recent browsing behavior through the mobile experience. To see your complete browsing history, use LinkedIn on a web browser.

Turning Off Browsing History

If you want to prevent any browsing history on LinkedIn from being recorded, you can turn the tracking off entirely:

1. Go to Settings & Privacy.
2. Select “Ads, personalization, and data”.
3. Turn off “Record your off-LinkedIn history”.

With history recording disabled, LinkedIn will no longer log your browsing activity to be viewed in your account settings. However, this means you lose access to viewing any history as well.

Why View Browsing History?

Here are some of the top reasons for viewing your browsing history on LinkedIn:

• See how much time you spend on LinkedIn daily or weekly.
• Identify profiles, companies and groups you visit frequently.
• Evaluate which content types you engage with more.
• Review your activity before a job interview or other important event.
• Get suggestions for new profiles or groups you may be interested in.
• Identify what searches led you to useful profiles and pages.
• Audit ads and sponsored content you’ve clicked on.
• Better understand your usage patterns to optimize your time on LinkedIn.

In summary, browsing history provides valuable visibility into how you use LinkedIn. Reviewing it periodically can inform efforts to use LinkedIn more efficiently and productively.

History Visibility to Others

It’s important to note that your browsing history on LinkedIn is private and not visible to anyone else on the platform. The history seen in your account settings is for your reference only. LinkedIn does use your browsing data internally for purposes like ad targeting and content recommendations. But they do not share individual browsing history outside of aggregate anonymous usage analytics.

Conclusion

LinkedIn offers straightforward options to view, filter, and clear your browsing history. While not exposed on mobile, the website settings provide full access to a timeline of your activity. Reviewing your history can provide valuable insights into how you engage with LinkedIn profiles, content, groups, and searches. Use filters to hone in on relevant subsets of your browsing data. And clear history when desired for a fresh start. Optimizing your LinkedIn usage based on browsing patterns can help make the platform more productive.