How to close your LinkedIn account: steps and what you lose

A LinkedIn profile often shows your name, your employer and your career history. If you want it gone, LinkedIn lets you close the account yourself. This guide follows the steps and warnings on LinkedIn's help page.

Close the account or only cancel Premium?

Closing your account means permanently deleting your profile and removing access to all your LinkedIn information from the site. If you have a Premium account, you can cancel the Premium access but keep your free Basic account, with your profile, connections and other information.

LinkedIn also says closing the account deletes any recommendations or endorsements you have given or received, plus your messages and connections. Your data is deleted as described in LinkedIn's Privacy Policy.

The steps on a computer

1. Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
2. Select Settings & Privacy from the dropdown.
3. Under the Account management section of Account preferences, click Change next to Close account.
4. Check the reason for closing your account and click Next.
5. Enter your account password and click Close account.

You can also close the account directly from the Close Account page.

The steps in the app

On iOS and Android, tap your profile picture, then Settings, then Account preferences. On the mobile browser, tap the Profile icon in the navigation bar, then the Settings icon at the top right of your profile. Then:

1. Tap Close account under Account management.
2. Tap Continue to proceed.
3. Tap the reason for closing your account and tap Next.
4. Enter your account password and tap Done.

Before you click

LinkedIn lists what to expect:

• you will not have access to your connections or any information you added to your account;
• your profile will no longer be visible on LinkedIn;
• you lose all recommendations and endorsements you collected;
• your purchase history is no longer accessible;
• you may want to download a copy of your data first.

If you have a premium membership, own a LinkedIn group or have a premium account license, you must resolve those before you can close your Basic account. If you created more than one account, LinkedIn has a separate article on deleting or merging a duplicate account.

Search engines may still show your profile

LinkedIn warns that search engines like Yahoo!, Bing and Google may still display your information temporarily, because of how they collect and update their search data. The help page links to an article about how your profile shows up in search engine results.

Can you reopen the account?

In most cases you can reopen your account if it has been closed less than 14 days. LinkedIn is unable to recover some things even then: endorsements and recommendations, ignored or pending invitations, followings such as Top Voices and companies, and group memberships.

If you signed up with Google, Apple or Microsoft

If you signed up for LinkedIn using login credentials from a third-party email provider, LinkedIn asks you to unlink that email account from LinkedIn through the third party's site as well.

Closing the account versus asking for erasure

Closing an account uses the tool the service gives you. Your legal right to have your data deleted is separate, and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) explains how it works in the UK. You can ask an organisation that holds data about you to delete it, and in some circumstances it must do so. The ICO says you should tell the organisation what personal data you want erased. You can ask verbally or in writing, but the ICO recommends following up in writing so you have clear proof of what you did.

The organisation has one calendar month to respond. In certain circumstances it can take up to an extra two months, and it should tell you within the first month if it needs more time. It can refuse in some cases, for example when it is legally obliged to keep the data, and it must then explain why and tell you about your right to complain to the ICO. If you are unhappy, raise a complaint with the organisation first. If you remain dissatisfied, you can complain to the ICO, or seek to enforce your rights through the courts.

What may remain visible after you close the account

Closing a LinkedIn account does not tell you what has been copied elsewhere, such as in directories or pages that repeat your name. Remove Me's free analysis needs no account. It looks at publicly visible web results, known public data breaches and a register of data brokers, and shows you a report. Remove Me does not yet send erasure requests on your behalf, so that step stays with you.