Ever since the pandemic hit our lives, we have been glued to our phones incessantly. According to figures in the latest Statista Digital Economy Compass, users globally spent an average of 142 minutes in 2021 on social media platforms per day. Interestingly, there has recently been a rise in the trend for “social media sabbatical”. If you intend to take one from LinkedIn, we have some tips on how can you delete your Linkedin account as well as ways to deactivate it temporarily.
LinkedIn is known to be the largest professional networking site that helps you to stay connected with your professional circles. it’s a great way to connect with people of similar interests, explore new opportunities, build a personal brand, and find jobs.
Highlights of the article
- Deleting account vs disabling LinkedIn account
- What data you lose when you close your LinkedIn account
- How to delete your LinkedIn account?
- How to deactivate your LinkedIn account?
- How to get a copy of data in LinkedIn?
Deleting LinkedIn account vs disabling LinkedIn account
Don’t know whether you want to delete the LinkedIn account or only only deactivate it? Let us first understand what is the primary difference between getting rid of the LinkedIn account versus disabling it for a period of time.
The primary difference is this:
When you delete or close your LinkedIn account you lose several things permanently. However, if you change your mind, you can reopen your account within 14 days. Do remember you will still lose some data permanently.
What will you lose permanently if you close your LinkedIn account?
- All the invitations you have received
- Eecommendations and endorsements
- Your memberships to LinkedIn groups
- Your followings — including authority figures, influencers, companies, etc
Whereas, disabling or deactivating your LinkedIn account means taking a break from LinkedIn. You can reactivate your account anytime.
If you know you want to shut down your LinkedIn account only for a period of time, we recommend you to deactivate your account. That way you can jump back in whenever you want.
How to delete your LinkedIn account?
It is always a good idea to think well before you deactivate a LinkedIn account, especially if you have a decent network and you use it. Building a community of professionals is not easy. Hence, delete the account only if you have a really good reason for it.
Once you have decided to remove your LinkedIn account permanently, there are some key steps to follow. We will go from the basics to the complete end with you.
Steps to delete LinkedIn account:
- Log in your LinkedIn account
Open LinkedIn account in any web browser. Now, login to your account
- Go to account preferences
When you tap on account preferences, you then have to scroll down to ‘close account’ option
- Confirm your action
You will see a message saying ‘we’re sorry to see you go’. Additionally, you will be given an option to confirm your action. Click to Confirm.
- Tell the reason for closing account
After you are done with the above steps, you will be asked about the reason for closing your account. Tick the choices according to the primary reason.
- Enter your password
The final step will be entering your password. Once you enter the password, your account will be closed.
If you don’t want to receive any further notification from LinkedIn, select the option that says ‘unsubscribe me from LinkedIn email communications, including invitations’. Ensure you select it, otherwise you might continue to receive communication that you don’t need.
How to deactivate LinkedIn account?
Let us now see how to deactivate or hibernate your LinkedIn account? LinkedIn prominently uses the term ‘Hibernating’ to define deactivating a LinkedIn account.
Steps to deactivate your LinkedIn account:
- Login to your LinkedIn account
First of all, you need to login to your LinkedIn account
- Go to settings
Look for settings in LinkedIn
- Open account preferences
When you tap on account preferences, you will have to scroll down and look for ‘Hibernate account’ option
- Open ‘hibernate account’
Click on hibernate account and you will be asked to give reasons for hibernating your account
- Enter your password
To get confirmed, you have to enter your password and you are ready to go!
We have noted that some people don’t want to continue with their LinkedIn account. However, they want their connections, posts, recommendations or other content created. Luckily, LinkedIn allow users to get a copy of their data. This method is also recommended to keep a backup of your data.
Backup LinkedIn account data
You can see the content you or your connection posted if you download the copy of your LinkedIn data. However, if your connection has a private email address, you will not be able to see it in your downloaded data.
How to get a copy of your data:
- Login to your LinkedIn account and go to settings
- Under settings look for ‘Data Privacy’
- Choose the option to ‘get a copy of your data’
- Open it and you will be able to tick the boxes next to the data
Note: I opened my LinkedIn account on the mobile app so I am getting these further instructions. You have to visit LinkedIn on your desktop to get a copy of the data.
The best part about LinkedIn is, you can get back to your LinkedIn account anytime and anywhere if you haven’t removed the account completely. Note that you can only reactivate your hibernated account within 14 days.
Also, once you reactivate it you will lose some of your data. To reactivate your LinkedIn account, you just have to login into your LinkedIn account by entering the password. You will immediately gain access to your account again.
