How to Permanently Delete Your LinkedIn Account in 2024: An Expert Entrepreneur‘s Guide

As a small business owner and entrepreneur for over 10 years focused on coaching professionals on building their online presence, I‘ve helped countless clients successfully leverage LinkedIn. However, even the most robust LinkedIn profile isn‘t always useful long-term.

There are many valid reasons why permanently deleting your LinkedIn account can be the right move, whether you‘re changing careers, aiming to separate professional and personal brands, or looking to take a prolonged break from the platform.

In 2023, with LinkedIn gaining over 30 million new members per quarter on average, understanding how to properly shut down your account while avoiding major headaches is critical before pulling the plug.

This comprehensive guide will walk through everything you need to know about permanently deleting your LinkedIn account and its after-effects with insider tips and recommendations along the way.

Should You Delete or Deactivate Your LinkedIn Account?

Before jumping straight to deleting your account, it‘s important to understand the key differences between deleting and temporarily deactivating your LinkedIn account:

Deactivating your account simply hides your profile and prevents you from showing up in searches or notifications. Your connections and content remain intact for if or when you choose to reactive your account.

Deleting your LinkedIn account completely removes your presence on LinkedIn, including profile, connections, messages, published posts and articles, and any groups or companies you manage. This action is permanent and irreversible.

Here is an at-a-glance comparison:

Generally speaking, account deactivation is recommended if you plan on returning to LinkedIn in the future or want time to reassess your needs. However, for entrepreneurs like myself focused on cultivating a stand-alone personal brand, permanent account deletion allows for a clean break between professional and personal social media presences.

Just be absolutely certain before deleting, as there is no going back once your account is erased!

Step-by-Step Guide to Downloading Your LinkedIn Data

I always advise downloading a copy of your LinkedIn data before closing your account. As a hub for your professional connections, accomplishments, shared articles, and conversations, losing access permanently means losing touch with that network.

Here is exactly how to securely download a backup of your LinkedIn data before deleting your account:

1. Login to your LinkedIn account through a web browser.
2. Click on profile photo > Settings & Privacy.
3. Select Getting a copy of your data below the Data privacy section.
4. Choose data types to download including profile info, connections, messages, etc.
5. Click the blue Request archive button.
6. When the archive is prepared (usually within minutes), a notification email will be sent. Return to the Getting a copy of your data page.
7. Click the Download ready link within 4 days to download the ZIP file containing your LinkedIn data.

I recommend saving this archive onto an external hard drive or personal cloud storage if you have sensitive information contained in your LinkedIn messages or profile. While most of your data is erased from LinkedIn‘s servers after closing your account, keeping your own backup allows you to retain control.

8 Vital Steps to Permanently Delete Your LinkedIn Account

Once you‘ve made the decision to permanently delete your LinkedIn account and have safely downloaded your account data, here is an 8-step walkthrough to smoothly guide you through the permanent account removal process:

On Desktop via Web Browser:

1. Login to your LinkedIn account via desktop web browser (account deletion is not possible through the mobile app).
2. Click on your profile image (top right corner).
3. Select Settings and Privacy from dropdown menu.
4. Click Closing your LinkedIn account below Account preferences.
5. Choose reason for permanently closing your account from dropdown menu provided.
6. Click blue Next button and enter account password when prompted.
7. Carefully read account closure disclosures.
8. Confirm permanent account deletion by clicking red Close Account button.

Once you complete the final Close Account step, your profiles, connections, and account data will be permanently removed within 24 hours. Most users find that their profiles and content become inaccessible much sooner however.

On Mobile via Web Browser:

The process for mobile browsers mirrors the desktop steps above:

1. Navigate to LinkedIn.com in your phone or tablet‘s web browser (in-app deletion not available).
2. Tap your profile image then Settings and Privacy.
3. Tap Closing your LinkedIn account.
4. Select reason for closing and tap blue Next button.
5. Enter account password when prompted.
6. Read closing disclosures and tap red Close Account button to confirm deletion.

For either desktop or mobile, once your account is deleted, your profile will no longer populate in LinkedIn search results or directories. Published articles and company pages will remove mentions of your name and profile photo even if the content itself remains intact and public.

What Happens After Your LinkedIn Account is Deleted

While the vast majority of your LinkedIn presence will be erased within the first 24 hours post-deletion, it can take up to 48 hours for all of your data to be permanently purged from LinkedIn‘s servers.

Here is a detailed breakdown of what you can expect after removing your LinkedIn account:

• Profile removed from search: Your profile will no longer appear in search results or LinkedIn‘s directory. Other users will not find or access your profile.
• Permanent loss of connections: Your network of 1st-level connections will be deleted. Any shared content between you and connections will also be erased.
• Groups inaccessible: You will be removed from all LinkedIn groups you‘ve joined. If you created or managed groups, ownership will need to be reassigned to another manager.
• Published articles stay public but lose attribution: Any published Longform or LinkedIn posts will remain visible to the public since deleting your account does not delete their content. However, your name and profile photo will be removed.
• Sponsored content remains intact: Paid advertising or sponsored content will continue running since these are considered LinkedIn assets. As the account owner, you remain liable for any billing even after deletion.
• Member-exclusive job posts are removed: Any member-only job listings you created using LinkedIn‘s talent and recruitment tools will be taken down since they require an account to access.

In summary – any public content you‘ve added to LinkedIn will stay visible but lose attribution to you after account removal. Private messages, connections, groups, and restricted content will be permanently erased.

Support Options for LinkedIn Account Deletion Issues

In my experience coaching professionals through the platform exiting process, most users encounter little to no issues permanently removing their LinkedIn accounts through the steps outlined above.

However, technology flaws or account glitches do infrequently happen. If you run into trouble deleting your account or have other issues post-deletion, a few support options are available:

• LinkedIn‘s Help Center: Contains troves of searchable support articles with answers to common deletion questions. Also has direct messaging options to contact customer service.
• Request Support Through LinkedIn‘s Contact Us: Choose "Closing Account" as your help topic to reach an agent who can walk through fixes or deletions.
• Twitter, Facebook: Reaching out to LinkedIn‘s other social media presences can often lead to helpful responses from their official accounts. Has worked for some users stuck in account deletion limbo.

With LinkedIn continuing to grow its user base by nearly 100 million members annually, properly removing your presence by permanently deleting your account is key to a clean break whether for privacy reasons, reducing social media noise, or strictly separating personal and professional online personas.

While decision to delete your account should not be taken lightly given its irreversible nature, this step-by-step guide details exactly how entrepreneurs, freelancers, and professionals can permanently erase their LinkedIn presence in 2024.