How to Delete Your LinkedIn Account (and Whether You Should)

To delete your LinkedIn account, download a copy of your data, cancel any Premium subscription, hand over ownership of any groups or company Pages, then open your settings, go to the account management section and choose the option to close your account. LinkedIn asks for a reason and your password, then closes the account. For a short period afterward you can usually reopen it, and after that your profile, connections and recommendations are gone for good.

Before you do it, it’s worth asking whether you should. For most professionals, LinkedIn is one of the top results for their name. Closing it removes a page you control, and something else will take its place in search. This guide explains how to delete a LinkedIn account cleanly, the alternatives, and how to manage what’s left behind.

Should you close LinkedIn or fix it?

People close LinkedIn accounts for good reasons: a duplicate profile, a career change, a flood of spam messages, harassment from a former colleague, or simply not wanting to be findable. But a LinkedIn profile is often a reputation asset, because it ranks well for your name and it says what you want it to say.

Your situation	Better option
You have two profiles	Close the duplicate, keep the main one
Too many messages and invitations	Tighten messaging and invitation settings
You don’t want to appear in Google	Turn off your public profile’s visibility to search engines
You need a break for a while	Hibernate the account
You’re leaving the platform for good	Close the account

If the goal is to control what people see when they search for you, a strong profile usually does more than an absent one. Our guide on LinkedIn profile SEO shows how to make it work for you instead.

Before you close your LinkedIn account

Download your data

LinkedIn lets you request a copy of your data from the data privacy section of your settings. You can pick specific items or request the full archive. The export can include your connections, messages, profile details, posts and recommendations. The connections file is especially useful, because it may contain contact details that are hard to rebuild. Some parts of the archive can take longer to prepare than others, so request it a few days before you plan to close.

Cancel Premium and sort out payments

If you pay for Premium or another LinkedIn subscription, cancel it first. LinkedIn generally won’t let you close an account with an active paid subscription. If you bought it through the Apple App Store or Google Play, cancel through that store. Recruiter, Sales Navigator or company-paid seats are usually managed by an admin at your employer.

Transfer groups and Pages

If you own a LinkedIn group, transfer ownership to another member before closing, or the group may be affected. If you’re the only admin of a company Page or showcase Page, add another admin first. Our guide to the LinkedIn business page covers Page admin roles.

Save your recommendations

Written recommendations from managers and clients disappear with your account, and they can’t be moved to a new one. Save them in your data export or copy them somewhere safe. If you might return to LinkedIn later, keep the recommender’s name and contact details so you can ask again.

How to delete your LinkedIn account

LinkedIn keeps the close account option in the account management part of its settings, on both the website and the mobile app. Labels change from time to time, so use these steps as a map rather than an exact menu path, and check LinkedIn’s help center if something looks different.

1. Sign in and open Settings from the menu under your profile photo.
2. Go to your account preferences and find the account management section.
3. Choose the option to close your account. LinkedIn will show what you’ll lose, including connections and recommendations.
4. Pick a reason and continue.
5. Enter your password and confirm.

LinkedIn then closes the account. Its help center explains that you can usually reopen a closed account within a limited window, though some things, such as group memberships, endorsements, pending invitations and followers, may not come back. After that window, the account can’t be restored. Check LinkedIn’s help center for the current details before you rely on reopening.

Hibernate vs close

LinkedIn offers a temporary option it calls hibernation. It hides your profile and activity from other members while you’re away, and you can come back by signing in again. Closing is the permanent route.

	Hibernate	Close
Profile visible to others	No	No
Connections and recommendations kept	Yes	No, after the reopening window
Can return	Yes, by reactivating	Only within the reopening window
Best for	A break, a sensitive period, a job change	Leaving LinkedIn for good

A third option is to keep the account but switch off your public profile’s visibility to search engines and people who aren’t signed in. That takes your profile out of Google over time while keeping your network intact for later.

What closing your LinkedIn account removes, and what it doesn’t

Closing your account removes your profile from LinkedIn and ends your connections. Your profile stops appearing in LinkedIn search. But some things behave differently:

• Messages you sent may remain in the other person’s inbox.
• Comments and posts you shared in groups or on other people’s posts may take time to disappear, and screenshots or quotes of them stay where they are.
• Your name in other people’s profiles, such as recommendations you wrote for them, may be affected differently from content on your own profile.
• Search engines can keep showing your old profile for a while after it’s closed.
• Data brokers and business directories that copied your job title and employer are separate. Closing LinkedIn doesn’t touch them. Our guides to the ZoomInfo opt-out and RocketReach removal cover two common examples.

LinkedIn, like most platforms, may keep some information after closure for legal, security or business reasons, as its privacy policy describes.

Your old profile in Google

Search engines don’t remove a closed profile instantly. After a few weeks, search your name and “LinkedIn” in a private window. If your old profile still appears, open the result: if it leads to a “profile not found” page, Google should drop it at its next crawl, and you can speed that along with Google’s Refresh Outdated Content tool. Our guide to removing outdated content from Google walks through it.

Also expect that a closed LinkedIn profile leaves a gap in your name’s search results. Something else will move up to fill it: another person with your name, an old news story, or a data broker listing. Plan for that before you close, especially if you’re in a job search.

If you can’t log in

You need to be signed in to close an account. If you’ve forgotten your password, reset it through LinkedIn’s sign-in page using your email or phone. If you no longer have access to the email on the account, LinkedIn’s help center has an identity verification process for recovering it. If you think someone else has taken over the account, report it through LinkedIn’s help center as a hacked account.

For a duplicate account you can’t access, LinkedIn’s help center explains how to request closure of a duplicate. For a profile that’s pretending to be you, report it as a fake profile; our guide on online impersonation covers the wider steps. If a family member has died, LinkedIn has a separate process for close relatives to request closure of their account.

A worked example

This scenario is illustrative, not a real client. Daniel is a sales manager who discovered he had two LinkedIn profiles: one from college with an old email address, and his current one. Recruiters kept finding the old one, which listed a job he left six years ago.

1. He recovers access to the old profile by resetting the password with the college email, which still forwards to him.
2. He downloads the old profile’s data and finds two recommendations he wants. He asks both people to write short ones on his main profile.
3. He checks he isn’t the owner of any groups on the old account, then closes it from the account management settings.
4. A month later, the old profile still shows in Google for his name, leading to a “not found” page. He submits it through the outdated content tool.
5. He updates his main profile’s headline, photo and experience so it’s the result recruiters now find.

Common mistakes

• Closing without exporting connections. Many people only realize later that LinkedIn was their only record of professional contacts.
• Forgetting Premium. An active subscription can block closure or keep billing through an app store.
• Closing the wrong profile. If you have two, check which one has the connections and recommendations before closing either.
• Closing in a crisis. If you’re closing because of negative comments, deleting the account may look like an admission. Our guide to negative comments on LinkedIn covers other options.
• Leaving a vacuum in search. If your LinkedIn profile ranked for your name, plan what will replace it.

If closing LinkedIn is part of a bigger effort to change what appears when people search your name, our personal reputation management team can help with both the removal and the rebuilding.

Frequently asked questions

Can I reopen my LinkedIn account after closing it?

Usually, within a limited window after closure, by following LinkedIn’s reopening process. Some things, such as endorsements, group memberships and pending invitations, may not be restored. After the window passes, the account can’t be recovered.

Does closing LinkedIn remove my profile from Google?

Not immediately. Google usually drops a closed profile after it next crawls the page. If it lingers, you can use Google’s Refresh Outdated Content tool to ask for the result to be updated.

Can I hide my LinkedIn profile without deleting it?

Yes. You can hibernate the account temporarily, or keep it active but switch off your public profile’s visibility to search engines and people who aren’t signed in to LinkedIn.

What happens to messages I sent on LinkedIn after I close my account?

Messages you sent may remain in the recipients’ inboxes. Closing your account removes your profile, but it doesn’t necessarily recall messages already delivered to other people.