Finding the email addresses of LinkedIn contacts can be a challenging task. Unlike other social networks, LinkedIn does not make user email addresses publicly visible. This is done to protect the privacy and avoid spamming of LinkedIn members. However, having access to email addresses can be very useful for sales prospecting, recruiting, networking, and marketing purposes. Fortunately, there are some solutions that can help retrieve LinkedIn email addresses for free using Chrome extensions. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore what are the best Chrome extensions to find LinkedIn email addresses for free, how they work, their features, limitations, and more. Having this ability can save lots of time and unlock new opportunities through improved communication beyond the LinkedIn platform.
| Extension Name | Price | Key Features |
|---|---|---|
| Snovly | Free | Finds email addresses from LinkedIn profiles, Gmail contacts, Web pages, etc. Can export CSV list. Has email verifier and list cleaning. |
| Email Finder Plus | Free | Finds emails from LinkedIn pages. Has fast scraping algorithm. Exports to Excel/CSV. |
| LeadIQ | 14-day Free Trial | Finds direct emails from 200+ sites. Verifies emails. Has email autocomplete when composing. Integrates with Gmail and Chrome. |
What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform with over 830 million members as of 2023. Headquartered in California, LinkedIn was founded in 2002 and later acquired by Microsoft in 2016. It allows members to create professional profiles listing their work experiences, education, skills, accomplishments, and more. Members can connect with each other and join professional groups based on industry, interests, university, etc. LinkedIn is primarily used for professional networking, job-seeking, recruiting, sales prospecting, and advertising. Given its large user base and rich profile data, LinkedIn is a goldmine for finding professional contacts and leads. However, the lack of visible email addresses poses a challenge in easily communicating outside the platform.
Benefits of Finding Email Addresses on LinkedIn
Here are some of the key benefits of finding LinkedIn members’ email addresses:
- Directly contact prospects without connecting or InMail
- Personalize cold outreach and build relationships
- Improve response rates versus InMail
- Export and segment leads for sales and recruiting
- Sync LinkedIn contacts with email marketing tools
- Save time versus collecting business cards or contacts
Having access to email enables more effective and scalable communication with LinkedIn connections and prospects.
Overview of LinkedIn Email Finder Chrome Extensions
Chrome extensions or addons are small software programs that can modify and enhance the functionality of the Chrome browser. There are extensions available that can integrate with LinkedIn and automatically find the email addresses of profiles you are viewing. When visiting a member’s profile, the extension will parse the page to extract and display the email, which you can then export. Here are the key features offered by LinkedIn email finder extensions:
- Parse profile pages to find email addresses
- Show the detected email on LinkedIn profile pages
- Export and save emails to CSV/Excel spreadsheet
- Store extracted emails for future reference
- Search for emails in bulk for all connections
- Automatically verify and clean invalid email addresses
- Integrate with Gmail to show emails for contacts
- Setup background email scraping from lists
The top extensions have powerful algorithms that can scrape emails even if not publicly listed. Many also integrate directly with LinkedIn to simplify the email lookup process.
Top Chrome Extensions for Finding LinkedIn Emails
There are dozens of email finder and lead generation extensions available for Chrome. Here are some of the top options to consider for getting LinkedIn email addresses for free:
Snovly
Snovly is an all-in-one lead generation and email finder tool. The Chrome extension integrates directly with LinkedIn to detect member emails. Simply visit any profile page and Snovly will display the found email address. You can then export all your discovered emails as a CSV file.
Snovly can also find emails from public webpages, Gmail contacts, Twitter bios, and more. It has advanced email verification and list cleaning capabilities. Snovly currently has over 200,000 users.
Key Features:
- Finds emails on LinkedIn with one click
- Exports results to Excel/CSV
- Verifies and cleans email list
- 300 free credits per month
- Gmail integration
Email Finder Plus
Email Finder Plus is a specialized Chrome extension for LinkedIn email hunting. After installing, you can navigate to any LinkedIn profile where it will detect and display the email if available. It uses an advanced algorithm to find emails even if not publicly listed.
The extension has a simple interface showing all the LinkedIn emails you have extracted. You can export the results to Excel/CSV. It also has fast bulk processing capabilities to harvest emails from all your connections.
Key Features:
- Finds hidden LinkedIn emails
- Fast email scraping algorithm
- Exports emails to Excel/CSV
- Easy bulk harvesting
- Straightforward email management
LeadIQ
LeadIQ is a premium Chrome extension for discovering professional emails across 200+ sites including LinkedIn. It can detect member emails directly on LinkedIn profile pages. LeadIQ also has unique features like real-time email autocomplete when composing emails.
This extension integrates with Gmail to display emails for your existing contacts when available. You can save all extracted emails for future reference. LeadIQ offers a 14-day free trial to test out its capabilities.
Key Features:
- Finds emails on LinkedIn and 200+ sites
- Email autocomplete for Gmail
- Verifies extracted email addresses
- Syncs emails with Gmail contacts
- 14-day free trial
How Do LinkedIn Email Finder Extensions Work?
These clever extensions use a variety of methods and algorithms to uncover LinkedIn member emails. Here is an overview of how they work:
Email Parsing Algorithms
The extensions use advanced parsing logic to process the raw LinkedIn page content and identify possible email addresses. This may look for common email patterns, associated names, or other identifiers. The algorithms are designed to find emails even if not publicly displayed.
Integrating with LinkedIn
Some extensions integrate directly with the LinkedIn API or embed their scripts into the page to simplify accessing profile data. This allows them to harvest emails in the background versus requiring visiting each profile.
Email Verification
To ensure extracted emails are accurate, extensions like LeadIQ and Snovly use email verification. They ping the email server to confirm the address is valid and active before displaying it.
Usage Tracking
The extensions track your LinkedIn browsing and email searches. This allows them to display a list of all the emails you have previously looked up.
Exporting and Integration
Finding emails is only part of the process. Extensions like Email Finder Plus allow easily exporting your results to CSV/Excel files for further outreach and synchronization with external tools like CRMs.
So in summary, a combination of clever data parsing, validation, storage, and integration with LinkedIn makes these email finder extensions extremely useful.
Setting Up and Using a LinkedIn Email Finder Extension
Installing and setting up a LinkedIn email finder extension is a quick and straightforward process. Here are the basic steps:
Install the Extension
First, open the Chrome Web Store and search for the extension, such as “Snovly” or “Email Finder Plus”. Click “Add to Chrome” to install the extension. This will ask for permission to access and modify data on websites like LinkedIn.
Sign Up for an Account
Many extensions require creating a free account to access full features. Follow the extension signup flow to register a new account. This usually only requires your name and email address.
Detect Emails on LinkedIn
Now visit any LinkedIn profile page and the extension icon will appear near the address bar. Click it to parse the page and display the found email address. The extension will also save the email for future lookup.
Export Emails
Once you have harvested enough emails, you can usually export your results as a CSV or Excel file using the extension’s interface. You can then import these into an email outreach tool.
Email Verification and Cleanup
Extensions like Snovly allow verifying and cleaning your list to remove invalid emails before outreach. This ensures high delivery rates.
The entire process takes just a minute or two per profile to start building an email list. The key is picking an extension with the right feature set to maximize your email harvesting.
Pros and Cons of Using LinkedIn Email Finder Extensions
Here is an overview of the notable advantages and potential drawbacks of using Chrome extensions to get LinkedIn emails:
Pros
- Extract hidden email addresses – Find non-public emails of members
- Simple email verification – Automatically validate accuracy of emails
- Fast email harvesting – Extract many emails rapidly
- Export capabilities – Download CSV list for outreach
- Cost effective – Mostly free or freemium models
Cons
- Email accuracy – Some invalid emails may be found
- Limited integration – Lacks deeper LinkedIn integration
- Spam risks – Tempting to improperly email blast
- Violates ToS – Against LinkedIn terms of service
- Manual exporting – Cumbersome list extraction process
The main downsides are lower data accuracy, lack of automation, and Terms of Service violations if emails are misused for spam. But overall the pros outweigh the cons in terms of usefulness for sales prospecting.
LinkedIn Email Best Practices
When harnessing the power of these LinkedIn email finder tools, it’s important to use proper email etiquette and avoid spammy behavior which could get your account suspended. Here are some best practices to follow:
- Only email prospects who you have an intent to build a relationship with
- Personalize each email using information on their profile
- Provide value and build trust rather than purely promotional content
- Include an opt-out option and respect requests to be removed
- Do not upload lists to external emailing services for mass blasting
- Use emails to nurture relationships, not bombard with constant emails
- Monitor email metrics like open, click through, and unsubscribe rates
- Thoughtfully build your list over time for maximum impact
The most important aspect is ensuring your outreach through LinkedIn emails creates value and engages your prospects rather than annoying them. Building relationships takes effort but pays off versus email spamming.
Top Email Finder Alternatives
Here are some alternative methods to find LinkedIn emails beyond browser extensions:
Premium Email Finders
Paid search tools like Voila Norbert and RocketReach charge a per search fee but offer higher accuracy business email results from across the web and LinkedIn. However, searches are limited unless you buy a sizable usage subscription.
Email Format Guesswork
You can try to guess email formats like [email protected] but this is very inaccurate unless you have inside knowledge of a company’s naming schemes.
Email Verification Tools
Some standalone email validation services will take lists and confirm which are valid emails. But this doesn’t actually find or collect new emails.
Sales Intelligence Browser Extensions
Extensions like Clearbit and Lusha integrate with LinkedIn and can surface member emails but have limited free usage before paid plans are required.
Manual Outreach
You can always directly connect and message members the old fashioned way. But this becomes time intensive at scale versus email automation.
Conclusion
In closing, specialized Chrome extensions provide an easy and free way to find any LinkedIn member’s email address for improved prospecting results. With the ability to export hundreds of emails for outreach, these tools unlock more opportunities through relationship-building beyond the confines of the LinkedIn platform. Just be sure to use proper email etiquette and personalization in your communication. If utilized correctly, email finder extensions give your LinkedIn lead gen strategy a boost while avoiding the spam trap.
