Your LinkedIn connections represent years of professional relationships, and knowing how to export LinkedIn connections puts that data in your hands. Whether you're running a job search, auditing your network before a career move, or looking for warm introductions at hiring companies, a simple CSV file can surface opportunities you'd otherwise miss. The whole process takes about two minutes.
LinkedIn makes this available through their data privacy settings. You don't need a premium account, a third-party tool, or any technical knowledge. You request a download, wait for an email, and open a spreadsheet. Here's exactly how to do it.
How to Export Your LinkedIn Connections
LinkedIn lets you download your connection data as a CSV file through the Settings menu. The export includes first and last names, email addresses (when available), current company, job title, and the date you connected. Follow these five steps.
Step 1: Go to LinkedIn's Data Privacy Settings
Open LinkedIn in your browser (desktop works best for this). Click your profile picture in the top right, then go to Settings & Privacy > Data Privacy > Get a copy of your data.
You can also skip the menu navigation entirely and go straight to the download page: linkedin.com/mypreferences/d/download-my-data
If LinkedIn asks you to verify your identity or re-enter your password, go ahead and do that. It's a standard security check before giving you access to personal data.
Step 2: Select "Connections" Only
You'll see a list of data categories LinkedIn can export: messages, articles, connections, profile data, and more. Uncheck everything except "Connections."
Why just Connections? Two reasons. First, the file downloads much faster when you only request one category. A full data export can take up to 24 hours. The Connections-only export typically arrives in 10 minutes. Second, the Connections CSV is the only file you need for network analysis, job search matching, or identifying warm intros.
Step 3: Click "Request Archive"
Once you've selected only Connections, click the Request archive button at the bottom of the page. LinkedIn will confirm that your request has been submitted. There's nothing else to do on this page.
Step 4: Wait for the Email from LinkedIn
LinkedIn will send you an email when your data export is ready. For a Connections-only export, expect to wait about 10 minutes. LinkedIn says it can take up to 24 hours, but that timeline applies to full data archives, not the Connections subset.
The email comes from LinkedIn with a subject line like "Your LinkedIn data archive is ready." If you don't see it within 20 minutes, check your spam or promotions folder. Gmail in particular likes to filter these into the Updates tab.
Step 5: Download the ZIP File and Find Connections.csv
Click the download link in the email. You'll get a ZIP file. Extract it (double-click on Mac, right-click and "Extract All" on Windows), and look inside for a file called Connections.csv.
That's it. Open the CSV in Excel, Google Sheets, or any spreadsheet tool to see your data in a clean table format.
Tip: The download link in LinkedIn's email expires after a few days. If you don't download it right away, you may need to request a new archive.
What's in the Connections CSV File?
The Connections.csv file contains one row per connection with six columns. Here's what each column includes and what to expect.
| Column | What It Contains |
|---|---|
| First Name | The first name on their LinkedIn profile |
| Last Name | The last name on their LinkedIn profile |
| Email Address | Their email, if they've made it visible to connections |
| Company | Their current employer as listed on LinkedIn |
| Position | Their current job title |
| Connected On | The date you became connected (format: DD Mon YYYY) |
A few things worth knowing about this data. The email column will be blank for many connections. LinkedIn only includes emails that people have opted to share with their network. Depending on your connection base, expect 30-40% to have an email address. The Company and Position columns reflect their current profile information at the time of export, so they'll be up to date.
What to Do with Your Exported LinkedIn Connections
A spreadsheet of names and companies is useful on its own, but the value goes up significantly when you do something specific with it. Here are three practical ways to use your export.
Audit Your Network
Sort your connections by company to see where your network is concentrated. You might have 15 connections at Salesforce, 8 at Google, and 12 at various startups you forgot about. This concentration map shows you where you have the strongest reach, and where you have gaps.
Sort by "Connected On" to see how active you've been. If your most recent connection is from 2023, your network is stale. If you've been connecting steadily, you'll see a mix of recent and older dates. This is useful for understanding how much of your network is current.
Find Warm Intros at Hiring Companies
This is where the data gets actionable for job seekers. If you know which companies you want to work for, you can search your CSV for those company names and see exactly who you know there. One connection at a hiring company is worth more than 50 cold applications to the same company.
The manual version of this (checking LinkedIn one company at a time) takes forever. With the CSV, you can cross-reference a list of target companies against your full connection list in seconds. Tools like InsideTrack automate this by matching your connections against 60,000+ open roles and showing you every company where you know someone and they're hiring.
Identify Companies Where You Know Multiple People
One connection at a company gives you a way in. Two or three connections at the same company give you options. You can pick the person you're closest to, the person closest to the hiring team, or approach from multiple angles.
In your spreadsheet, use a pivot table or a simple COUNTIF formula to count connections per company. Companies where you have three or more connections are your warmest targets. You likely have more of these than you think.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
The export process is straightforward, but a few things trip people up. Here's what to do if you run into problems.
The email never arrives
Check your spam folder, promotions tab, and any email filters you've set up. The email comes from LinkedIn's notification system, and aggressive spam filters sometimes catch it. If it's been over 24 hours with no email anywhere, go back to the data export page and submit a new request. LinkedIn occasionally drops requests, and a second attempt usually works.
Many email addresses are missing
This is normal. LinkedIn only exports email addresses that connections have chosen to share with their network. Most people restrict this in their privacy settings. A 30-40% email hit rate is typical. If you need email addresses for outreach, the better path is to message people directly on LinkedIn or use the connection data (name + company) to find them through other channels.
Company and title data looks outdated
The CSV reflects whatever's on each person's profile at the time of export. If someone hasn't updated their LinkedIn in a while, their company and title might be old. There's no way around this from the export side. It's a profile maintenance issue on their end. For job search purposes, the name and company are still useful for identifying potential warm paths, even if the title is out of date.
The CSV won't open properly
If you see garbled text or everything in one column, the file probably opened without the right encoding or delimiter. In Excel, use File > Open and select the CSV manually (instead of double-clicking). Choose "Delimited" and "Comma" as the separator. In Google Sheets, just use File > Import and upload the CSV file. Google Sheets handles the formatting automatically.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. LinkedIn provides a built-in data export tool for this exact purpose. Under GDPR and similar data privacy laws, you have the right to download a copy of your personal data from any platform. You're using an official, supported feature that LinkedIn itself built into the Settings menu. There's nothing gray area about it.
LinkedIn only includes email addresses that connections have made visible to their network. Many users restrict email visibility in their privacy settings. On average, about 30-40% of connections will have an email address in the export. The rest will show a blank cell in the Email Address column. This is controlled by each person's individual privacy settings, so there's nothing you can do to force more emails to appear.
There's no hard limit on how often you can request a data export. LinkedIn may throttle very frequent requests, but once a day works fine. Most people only need to re-export every few months to capture new connections. If you're in an active job search and connecting with people regularly, exporting monthly keeps your data current.
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