You've put in a lot of work curating your LinkedIn network. It's likely full of professional contacts, such as past and current colleagues, mentors, and other people important to your career. That's why it's essential to protect your LinkedIn contacts by downloading them and storing them off-site.
Having detailed contact information for your LinkedIn contacts off of the site can help you:
- Stay in touch with your network
- Build more robust marketing and recruiting portfolios
- Protect you from losing everything if your account is hacked
In this guide, you'll learn how to download LinkedIn contacts and different ways to save the information you need.
How to Get Contacts from LinkedIn
You can export a list of LinkedIn followers and contacts from your profile anytime. LinkedIn lets you get a copy of your account data, including your connections, through the site's data and activity management page.
The simplest way to get a copy of your LinkedIn contacts list is by having the site email them to you. You can export your connections through email by following these steps:
- Open the "Me" menu at the top of the LinkedIn homepage. This menu is identified by a small version of your headshot.
- Click "Settings & Privacy," then click "Data privacy."
- Scroll down to "How LinkedIn uses your data."
- Find "Get a copy of your data," then click the "Want something in particular?" option.
- Select "Connections," then click "Request archive." You can also select "Imported Contacts" if you want to export the data you've personally added to LinkedIn as well.
- Enter your password and click "Done."
This will export all of your connections data to the email address connected to your LinkedIn account. The email will contain a link to access all of your contacts and the information they allow the platform to share.
It may take up to ten minutes for LinkedIn to prepare and send the information to your email. If you don't see it after ten minutes, check the filtered folders in your email to ensure it hasn't been marked as spam.
Note that LinkedIn doesn't currently support downloading someone else's LinkedIn contacts. The platform only permits people to export contact lists that consist of their own first-degree connections.
How to Download LinkedIn Contacts to Excel
Once LinkedIn has exported your contact list, the site will automatically generate a file containing all that information. You can start downloading LinkedIn contacts to a spreadsheet with these steps:
- Follow the "Download your data archive" link in the email LinkedIn sent to your primary email account. This will take you back to the "Get a copy of your data" page, but it will now include a blue "Download archive" link.
- Click "Download archive." A popup will appear asking you where you want to save the .CSV file. Save it to your preferred location.
- Open the .CSV file. You should see a spreadsheet full of information about your contacts. It will automatically include their names and any other information they allow LinkedIn to share with other users.
How to Export LinkedIn Contacts with Phone Numbers
LinkedIn no longer provides a native way to export phone numbers for your contacts. You can access your connections' public phone numbers by visiting their accounts individually. You can also use web scraping programs like Scraping Expert to gather information from these pages on your behalf.
How to Transfer LinkedIn Contacts to Another Account
If you have a duplicate LinkedIn account, you can transfer your contacts from one to the other with just a few extra steps.
First, download the connections from the account you want to transfer, following the steps above. Make sure you export them into a .CSV file so they're saved on your computer. LinkedIn should automatically generate a file that's structured to correctly add the contacts to your other account. The file should include each contact's first and last name and email, but you can go into the spreadsheet and add phone numbers and additional information.
Next:
- Open the "My Network" menu at the top of your homepage, then click "Connections."
- Find the "Your contact import is ready" section."
- Click "More options," then click "Upload a file."
- Select the .CSV file with your contacts and click "Upload file."
This will automatically upload the information from the spreadsheet into LinkedIn, saving you significant time compared to inputting that information by hand.
How to Export Contacts From LinkedIn Sales Navigator
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is an alternative to LinkedIn Premium. If you upgrade your LinkedIn Account, you can choose to upgrade to Sales Navigator to unlock a variety of sales and analytics tools to make it easier to build connections with your clients.
The contacts saved to your Sales Navigator account are even more important than those on a standard profile. Sales Navigator contacts are critical to your business because they are often the primary way you'll communicate with those customers. You should regularly export your contacts from LinkedIn Sales Navigator to ensure you can stay in communication even if something happens to your account.
Currently, there is no native way to export account and lead information from Sales Navigator off of LinkedIn directly into a spreadsheet. However, certain Sales Navigator accounts allow you to sync data between your CRM and the platform. Your CRM will likely allow you to export your contact information directly.
You can also use external tools to collect your lead and contact information. Valuable tools for exporting this information include Wiza and PhantomBuster.
Protect Your Connections by Downloading LinkedIn Contacts Regularly
Don't let the time you've put into cultivating your professional connections go to waste. Your account could get hacked or corrupted, causing you to lose all your valuable contact information. You can protect your connection list by regularly downloading LinkedIn contacts to your personal device or CRM. Check out other resources from Cleverly to learn about the importance of great LinkedIn networks.
