How to Delete a Section on LinkedIn

Your LinkedIn profile isn’t set in stone, it’s a dynamic summary of your professional journey that should evolve with your career goals. Sometimes, the most powerful update you can make is to subtract, not add. This guide will walk you through exactly how to delete sections on your LinkedIn profile, explain the strategic reasons for doing so, and provide step-by-step instructions to declutter your professional presence with confidence.

Why Deleting a Section on LinkedIn Is a Smart Career Move

Cleaning up your LinkedIn profile goes beyond simple tidiness. It’s a strategic act of personal branding. Every section should serve a purpose and contribute to the story you want to tell recruiters, clients, or industry peers. If a section isn't helping, it might be holding you back.

To Spotlight Your Most Relevant Experience

Imagine you're a software developer aiming for a leadership role in product management. A lengthy "Projects" section detailing dozens of coding assignments from seven years ago might bury the more recent experience that showcases your strategic thinking and user empathy. Deleting or condensing old, less relevant sections makes space for your most important achievements to shine. By removing the noise, you actively direct a visitor's attention to what matters now - your qualifications for the job you want, not the job you had a decade ago.

To Remove Outdated and Irrelevant Information

A profile cluttered with expired certifications, long-past volunteer roles, or academic awards from your undergraduate years can make your profile look dated. While these achievements were important at the time, they may no longer reflect your current expertise. Maintaining a lean profile demonstrates that you are forward-looking and have discerning judgment about what’s truly valuable in your skillset. Think of it like a resume: you wouldn’t include your high school summer job if you now have 15 years of corporate experience. The same principle applies here.

To Simplify and Focus Your Professional Narrative

Recruiters spend mere seconds scanning a profile before making a snap judgment. A sprawling profile with ten different sections can be overwhelming and dilutes your core message. Does that "Publications" section from your master's degree thesis support your current goal of becoming a top-tier sales executive? Probably not. By trimming the excess, you create a focused, compelling professional narrative that’s easy for visitors to digest. The goal is clarity, not comprehensiveness. A powerful profile tells a clear story, and every section is a chapter that moves that story forward.

Before You Hit Delete: A Pre-Flight Checklist

Deleting a section on LinkedIn is permanent. There’s no "undo" button, so a little prep work can save you a big headache later. Follow this simple checklist before you make any changes.

• Download a Backup of Your Data. This is your safety net. Before removing anything, download an archive of your LinkedIn data. To do this, go to your Settings & Privacy >, Data Privacy >, Get a copy of your data. Select the "Want something in particular?" option and check the box for "Profile." If you accidentally delete something you later realize you need, the information will still exist in this file, allowing you to manually rebuild it.
• Review and Repurpose Key Information. Take a look at the section you plan to delete. Is there any critical information you can move elsewhere? For example, if you're deleting the "Projects" section but one project was particularly impactful for a specific job, you can embed that information into the description of that role in your "Experience" section. Copy and paste any key phrases or stats before you remove the entire section.
• Consider Editing Instead of Deleting. Sometimes a section doesn't need to be eliminated entirely, it just needs a good audit. If your "Licenses & Certifications" section has 20 entries, maybe you only need to feature the five most relevant and advanced ones. Removing specific entries can clean up a section without getting rid of it altogether and is often less drastic.
• Confirm It Doesn't Support Your Goal. Ask yourself one final, direct question: “Does this section help me achieve my current career goal?” If the answer is a clear "no" and it doesn’t add valuable context to your main experiences, it’s officially on the chopping block. Be confident in your decision to streamline.

The Step-by-Step Guide: How to Delete Any Section on LinkedIn

The process is straightforward, but the user interface can sometimes hide the right buttons. For most optional sections (like Projects, Honors & Awards, Courses, etc.), you remove them by deleting all the individual entries within them. Once the last entry is gone, the section itself disappears completely from your profile.

Deleting a Section on a Desktop Browser

The desktop version of LinkedIn gives you the most straightforward editing experience. Here’s how to do it:

1. Navigate to your LinkedIn profile by clicking the “Me” icon in the top navigation bar and selecting “View Profile” from the dropdown menu.
2. Scroll down your profile to find the section you want to remove. For this example, let's say we're deleting the "Publications" section.
3. In the top-right corner of that section's box, click the pencil icon (Edit).
4. This action will open a new page or a pop-up window listing all the entries within that section. You will see a pencil icon next to each individual publication. Click the pencil icon next to the first entry you want to delete.
5. In the edit window for that entry, scroll to the bottom and click the “Delete” button (the text may vary depending on the section, e.g., "Delete license" or "Delete award").
6. A confirmation pop-up will appear. Click “Delete” to permanently remove the entry.
7. Repeat this process for every item listed. After you have deleted the final entry, the "Publications" section heading will automatically vanish from your profile.

Deleting a Section on the LinkedIn Mobile App (iOS & Android)

You can also edit your profile just as effectively from your phone. The steps are very similar, with minor differences in navigation.

1. Open the LinkedIn app on your smartphone.
2. Tap your profile picture in the top-left corner, and then tap “View Profile.”
3. Scroll down to find the section you wish to get rid of (for instance, the “Courses” section).
4. Just like on desktop, tap the pencil icon next to the section heading.
5. This will bring you to a screen listing all your saved courses. Tap the pencil icon next to the individual course you want to remove.
6. On the editing screen for that course, scroll all the way to the bottom and tap “Delete course.” A confirmation box will appear.
7. Tap “Delete” to confirm its removal.
8. Continue deleting each course one by one. When the last one is gone, the "Courses" section header will disappear from your mobile profile view. Your changes will sync across all devices.

What About the Sections You *Can't* Delete?

It's important to recognize that not all sections on your LinkedIn profile are optional. LinkedIn has a set of core, non-negotiable sections that form the fundamental structure of every profile. You cannot remove these sections entirely, but you can - and should - heavily edit them to fit your narrative.

The main sections that cannot be deleted are:

• Intro Card: Your name, headline, location, and photo.
• About: Your professional summary.
• Experience: Your work history.
• Education: Your academic background.
• Skills: Your list of professional competencies.

While you can't delete them, you have full control over their content. Think of curating these sections as a form of "deleting" irrelevant information. For example, you can remove very old or unrelated jobs from your "Experience" section. You can remove your high school from "Education" if you have a university degree. You can even delete your "About" summary text if you wish to leave it blank (though this is not recommended). The goal is the same: stay focused and relevant.

"Help! I Deleted a Section by Mistake!" How to Recover

This is the moment where that pre-flight checklist hopefully saves the day. If you deleted an entire section by removing all its entries, there is no one-click "undo" or "restore" button on LinkedIn. Once it's gone from your profile, it's gone.

However, if you followed our advice and downloaded an archive of your data, you still have the raw information saved on your computer. Find the file from your download (usually it's a collection of CSV files) and open the one corresponding to the section you deleted (e.g., Projects.csv). All the titles, dates, and descriptions you had will be there.

From here, you simply have to rebuild it manually:

1. On your profile, click the "Add profile section" button.
2. Choose the section you want to re-add (e.g., from the "Recommended" or "Additional" dropdowns).
3. Copy and paste the information from your saved CSV file into the appropriate fields.
4. Save each entry one by one.

It’s not a quick fix, but it ensures that a simple misclick doesn't result in a permanent loss of valuable information.

Final Thoughts

A polished and powerful LinkedIn profile is a curated reflection of your professional story. Knowing what to subtract is just as valuable as knowing what to add, giving you direct control over the narrative you present to the world. By strategically removing dated or irrelevant sections, you create a focused profile that highlights your most compelling qualifications and respects the time of everyone who visits your page.

Maintaining a strong profile is the first step, and consistency is key to building an active professional brand. Once your LinkedIn is in great shape, sharing valuable content regularly is what keeps your network engaged. We know that creating and scheduling content across multiple channels can be a challenge. That’s why we built Postbase - a straightforward, modern social media tool designed to help you plan, schedule, and publish all your content from a single clean calendar. It’s built to feel intuitive, letting you focus on what really matters: creating great work.