How to Delete Your LinkedIn Account (and Why Hibernating Is Usually Better)
The exact steps to close a LinkedIn account on desktop and mobile, what happens to your data, how long you have to change your mind, and the reversible option most people should take instead.
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- Closing is under Settings → Account preferences → Account management → Close account
- Hibernating hides your profile and is fully reversible, most people want this instead
- You have a limited window to reactivate after closing, after which recovery is not possible
- Download your data first. Once the window passes, it is genuinely gone.
On this page
Most people looking this up don’t actually want to delete their account. They want to stop being visible, stop getting notifications, or stop being contacted. Two of those three have a reversible answer, so we’ll cover that first, then the real deletion steps, in full, for the people who want them.
The option most people actually want: hibernate
Hibernating your account hides your profile from everyone. You disappear from search, your profile stops being visible, and the notifications stop. Your connections, messages and history stay intact, and you can come back whenever you like with nothing lost.
Settings & Privacy → Account preferences → Account management → Hibernate account
If you’re leaving because of a job situation, burnout on the feed, or a period where you’d rather not be findable, this is the one. It’s completely reversible. There is no reason to permanently destroy a decade of professional connections to get a few quiet months.
Before you close: download your data
Do this even if you’re certain. It takes a few minutes and it’s the only copy you’ll get.
Settings & Privacy → Data privacy → Get a copy of your data
Pick the full archive. LinkedIn emails you a download link, usually within 24 hours. The archive includes your connections, messages, posts, recommendations and profile history.
Once your account is closed and the reactivation window passes, LinkedIn cannot recover any of it for you. Support cannot make an exception. Get the archive first.
How to close your account, desktop
- Click your profile photo in the top navigation
- Choose Settings & Privacy
- Open Account preferences
- Under the Account management section, choose Close account
- Select a reason (this is optional feedback, any answer works)
- Enter your password to confirm
How to close your account, mobile app
- Tap your profile photo
- Tap Settings
- Tap Account preferences
- Tap Account management, then Close account
- Choose a reason and confirm with your password
If you subscribe to Premium, LinkedIn will ask you to cancel the subscription first. Do that from Settings → Subscriptions, cancelling inside the app store if you subscribed there, since closing the account does not automatically stop an Apple or Google billing cycle.
What happens after you close it
You have a reactivation window. LinkedIn currently allows reactivation for up to 20 days after closing. Within that period you can sign back in and restore the account.
After the window, it is permanent. Profile, connections, endorsements, recommendations and your message history are deleted. Recommendations you wrote for other people disappear from their profiles too, which people are often surprised by.
Your messages may still exist for others. Recipients keep their own copy of a conversation. Closing your account removes your side, not theirs.
Search engines take time to catch up. Your profile may still appear in Google results for a while until it’s recrawled. That’s a cache, not a live profile.
Group memberships and page admin roles end. If you’re the only admin of a company page, transfer that role before you close, or the page can be left orphaned and it is a genuine chore to recover.
If you’re closing because of unwanted messages
There’s a middle path worth knowing about, because deleting an account is a heavy solution to a settings problem:
- Settings → Communications controls who can reach you and how often
- Settings → Visibility controls who can see your profile, your connections, and your activity
- You can turn off profile viewing notifications and browse privately
- You can set your profile to be hidden from search engines entirely
Between those settings and hibernation, most “I want to delete LinkedIn” problems have a reversible fix.
A note on why we wrote this
We make Banyan, a LinkedIn outreach tool. Writing a clear guide to leaving LinkedIn is an odd thing for us to do, and we thought about that.
We landed here: the outreach industry has a real problem with volume, too many messages, too little thought, and some of the people reading this are leaving because of it. Pretending that isn’t happening wouldn’t make it less true. If our own guide helps someone leave more cleanly, or helps them find the settings that make staying bearable, that seems like the right trade.
If you’re staying, our LinkedIn automation guide covers the line between outreach that’s welcome and outreach that isn’t. We try hard to stay on the right side of it.
The short version
Hibernate if there’s any chance you’ll return, it’s reversible and costs you nothing. If you’re certain, download your data first, then Settings & Privacy → Account preferences → Account management → Close account. You have about 20 days to change your mind. After that it’s gone for good.
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