When you upload a photo to your LinkedIn profile, where does it actually go? Many LinkedIn users may not think much about what happens behind the scenes after clicking the upload button. However, understanding where your photos are stored on LinkedIn can be useful for managing your profile and controlling your information.
LinkedIn Photo Storage Basics
On a basic level, photos uploaded to LinkedIn are stored on LinkedIn’s servers. LinkedIn is built on Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform, which provides the storage capacity for all user content on LinkedIn, including photos. So your LinkedIn photos are not sitting on your own device or personal cloud storage. They reside within LinkedIn’s own cloud storage environment.
More specifically, your uploaded LinkedIn photos are associated with your account and profile. They become part of your personal user data on LinkedIn. So your photos are connected to your identity on the platform and permissioned specifically to you.
LinkedIn’s Usage Rights for Photos
LinkedIn’s User Agreement provides the company with certain rights to the content you upload, including your photos. By using LinkedIn, you grant the company a license to store, copy, distribute, modify, run, and display your photos as part of providing the LinkedIn service.
This allows LinkedIn to reuse your photos across the platform in different ways that are beneficial to your profile. For example, your photo may be displayed in various locations in the LinkedIn UI, used in autogenerated profile banners, incorporated into ads targeting your connections, etc.
Photo File Formats
LinkedIn only supports JPEG, PNG, and GIF image file formats. When you upload a photo, LinkedIn will convert it to JPEG format. JPEG is best for photo storage due to its small file size and wide compatibility. The tradeoff is that JPEG uses lossy compression, meaning some image quality is sacrificed each time a JPEG is compressed again.
Maximum Photo Size
LinkedIn imposes constraints on the maximum size of photos you can upload:
- Profile photo: 8 MB
- Banner photo: 8 MB
- Shared image post: 10 MB
Larger photos will be automatically compressed by LinkedIn to meet these size limits. Again, compression can affect image quality. For best results, aim for photos under 2-3 MB in their original size.
Photo Privacy and Security
Since your LinkedIn photos reside on LinkedIn’s cloud servers, what steps does the company take to keep them private and secure?
Network and Server Security
LinkedIn utilizes industry-standard encryption protocols to protect data as it moves between your device, servers, and other endpoints. Photos are encrypted both in transit and at rest on LinkedIn’s servers. The servers themselves are housed in secure data centers that control physical access.
Access Controls
Your LinkedIn photos are not publicly accessible to anyone on the internet. They are private resources associated with your account that can only be viewed or accessed by your direct connections, or other LinkedIn members depending on your profile visibility settings. The exception is your profile photo, which is always public.
User Privacy Settings
You can control who can see your photos through your account privacy settings. For example, you can restrict photo viewing to just your 1st-degree connections, disable downloads, and enable/disable the ability for your photos to appear in searches outside of LinkedIn.
Photo Deletion
Deleting a photo from LinkedIn will permanently remove it from their cloud storage within 24 hours. However, any copies of your photos retrieved by other users in that time frame may persist. You can also request deletion of all your LinkedIn data including photos by contacting customer service.
Downloading Your LinkedIn Photos
Since your uploaded photos belong to your user account, you can also download copies of them anytime as backups or for use outside of LinkedIn. Here are a couple ways to download your LinkedIn photos:
Download Profile Photo
Your profile photo can be downloaded from the Me > View profile page. Click the More actions icon below your profile photo, then choose Save to downloads. This will save a copy of your current profile photo in JPEG format to your local device storage.
Export Data from Settings
From the Account > Settings page, use the Get a copy of your data option to request an export of your LinkedIn data. The export will include a zip file with all of your uploaded photos. You can choose which data to export – select just “Photos and videos” if you only want your media.
Scraper Tools
There are scraper tools and browser extensions available that let you bulk download all of your LinkedIn photos or other user data. Some paid scraper services provide higher download limits compared to LinkedIn’sExport data.
Best Practices
To recap, here are some best practices for successfully managing your photos on LinkedIn:
- Maintain profile and banner photos under 8MB and shared images under 10MB.
- Use JPG image format for best performance.
- Adjust privacy settings to control photo access.
- Periodically download your photos as needed.
- Delete old photos you no longer want on your profile.
Conclusion
Knowing where LinkedIn stores your photos and how to manage them properly gives you control over your profile. Following LinkedIn’s guidelines on image formats and sizes ensures your photos will render properly across the platform. Checking your privacy settings periodically will prevent unwanted access. Finally, downloading copies of your photos to local storage provides a backup in case you ever decide to leave LinkedIn.