How to Delete a Profile from LinkedIn: What You Need to Know
Deleting a LinkedIn profile is a permanent action with real consequences for your professional digital footprint. Whether you're stepping back from social media, consolidating accounts, or simply done with the platform, understanding exactly what happens — and what your options are — before you click that final button matters more than most people realize.
Closing Your Account vs. Hiding Your Profile
Before jumping straight to deletion, it's worth knowing that LinkedIn offers two distinct paths: permanently closing your account and temporarily hiding your profile.
Hiding your profile (sometimes called going into "private mode" or limiting your visibility) lets you stay on LinkedIn without appearing in search results. Your connections remain, your data stays intact, and you can return to full visibility at any time. This is reversible.
Closing your account is not reversible. Once confirmed, LinkedIn begins deleting your data, your connections are severed, your recommendations disappear, and your profile URL goes dark. LinkedIn states the process can take up to 30 days to fully clear your data from their systems, though some information may persist in backups for a limited period as outlined in their privacy policy.
How to Delete Your LinkedIn Profile on Desktop
The deletion option isn't prominently featured — LinkedIn tucks it several menus deep. Here's how the process works on a desktop browser:
- Log into your LinkedIn account
- Click your profile photo or "Me" icon in the top navigation bar
- Select Settings & Privacy
- Navigate to the Account preferences section
- Scroll to find Close account (typically near the bottom of that section)
- LinkedIn will ask you to select a reason for leaving
- You'll be prompted to re-enter your password to confirm your identity
- A final confirmation screen summarizes what will be lost — connections, endorsements, messages, and any Premium subscription benefits
- Confirm to proceed
Once confirmed, your profile becomes inaccessible immediately, though the underlying data deletion process continues in the background.
How to Delete Your LinkedIn Profile on Mobile
The mobile app follows a similar path, though the exact navigation labels can vary slightly depending on your iOS or Android version and the app version installed:
- Tap your profile photo to open the menu
- Go to Settings
- Select Account preferences
- Tap Close account
- Follow the same confirmation steps as desktop
⚠️ One important note: if you have an active LinkedIn Premium subscription, canceling your account does not automatically cancel your billing. You need to cancel the subscription separately before closing the account, or you may continue to be charged. This applies whether you subscribed through LinkedIn directly, through the App Store, or through Google Play — each billing method requires cancellation through its own platform.
What You Lose When You Delete LinkedIn
Understanding what disappears helps clarify whether deletion is really what you want:
| What Gets Deleted | What May Persist |
|---|---|
| Profile and work history | Data in LinkedIn's backup systems (temporary) |
| Connections and followers | Content others have shared or downloaded |
| Messages and InMail history | Your name/profile in others' connection history |
| Recommendations given and received | Any public posts others may have screenshotted or shared |
| Endorsements | |
| Groups and saved jobs |
The key takeaway: information you've shared publicly can't be fully "un-shared." If someone saved or exported your contact information, downloaded your resume, or screenshotted your profile, that data exists outside LinkedIn's control.
Exporting Your Data Before You Delete
LinkedIn allows you to download an archive of your data before closing your account — and it's worth doing if you want to preserve your connection list, messages, or work history for your own records.
To export: go to Settings & Privacy → Data privacy → Get a copy of your data. LinkedIn will compile the archive and email you a download link, typically within 24 hours depending on account size.
This is especially useful if you've built a substantial professional network and want to maintain those contact details outside the platform.
🔍 The Variables That Affect Your Situation
Whether deletion is straightforward or complicated depends on several factors:
- Active Premium or Recruiter subscriptions add a billing step that must be handled separately
- LinkedIn Learning access tied to your account disappears with it
- Company pages you admin require transferring admin rights or separately managing that page's future
- Third-party apps connected via LinkedIn login (some job boards, portfolio sites, or HR tools) may lose access if LinkedIn was your sign-in method
- Geographic location can affect data retention timelines due to varying privacy regulations like GDPR in Europe, which grants stronger data deletion rights
Someone with a basic free account and no connected services will find deletion clean and simple. Someone with Premium, a company page, and a dozen third-party integrations built around their LinkedIn identity faces a meaningfully more involved process — and potentially some downstream disruption to tools they use regularly.
How much of that applies to your own setup is the piece only you can account for before proceeding.