How to Get a LinkedIn Handle From a URL

LinkedIn uses profile URLs as the primary way to identify and share individual accounts — and buried inside that URL is what most people refer to as the LinkedIn handle or custom username. Extracting it is straightforward once you understand how LinkedIn URLs are structured.

What Is a LinkedIn Handle?

On LinkedIn, your handle is the unique identifier that appears at the end of your profile URL. It's sometimes called your public profile username or custom URL slug. It's the part that distinguishes your profile from the millions of others on the platform.

Unlike Twitter/X where "@handle" is front and center, LinkedIn's handle lives inside a URL and isn't displayed in the same prominent way. That's why people often need to extract it manually — for outreach, CRM entries, portfolio links, or automation tools.

Anatomy of a LinkedIn Profile URL

A standard LinkedIn profile URL looks like this:

The structure breaks down like this:

So in https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-doe-marketing, the handle is john-doe-marketing.

It's everything that comes after /in/ and before any trailing slash, query string (?), or additional parameters.

How to Extract the Handle From a LinkedIn URL

Method 1: Read It Directly From the URL

If you have the full URL in front of you — whether in a browser address bar, a spreadsheet, or a message — the handle is simply the last segment of the path.

Steps:

1. Look at the URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-smith-42b1c/
2. Find the /in/ portion
3. Copy everything after /in/ — in this case: jane-smith-42b1c
4. Remove any trailing slash if present

That string is the handle. 🎯

Method 2: Visit the Profile and Check the Address Bar

If someone shares their LinkedIn profile as a link and you want to confirm or copy the handle:

1. Open the link in a browser
2. Look at the address bar once the page loads
3. The URL will resolve to their canonical profile URL
4. The segment after /in/ is the handle

Note: LinkedIn sometimes appends session tokens or tracking parameters after the username (e.g., ?originalSubdomain=uk or ?trk=...). These are not part of the handle. The handle ends at the first / or ? after the username segment.

Method 3: Extract It Programmatically

If you're working with a list of URLs — say, in a spreadsheet, script, or data tool — you can parse out the handle systematically.

In Google Sheets, you can use a formula like:

This captures everything between /in/ and the next / or ?, which isolates the handle cleanly.

In Python, a simple approach: