How to Get Data from LinkedIn

Unlocking the data hidden within your LinkedIn profile and company page is the first step toward building a smarter, more effective professional strategy. This guide breaks down exactly how to retrieve the information you need, from a complete archive of your personal activity to detailed analytics on your content performance. We'll cover the official methods, the tools you can use, and what pitfalls to avoid.

Method 1: Download Your Data Directly from LinkedIn

The most straightforward way to get a comprehensive look at your information is by requesting a copy directly from LinkedIn. This is the best method for getting a full backup of your own activity, connections, messages, and more. LinkedIn offers this in two options: a quick download of key data or a complete archive of everything.

How to Request Your Personal Data Archive

This archive includes almost every piece of data associated with your account, making it a powerful resource for personal record-keeping or analysis. Here’s how to get it:

1. Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage, then select Settings &, Privacy from the dropdown menu.
2. In the left-hand navigation, click on Data Privacy.
3. Look for the section titled "How LinkedIn uses your data" and click Get a copy of your data.
4. You'll see two options. For a full backup, select the second option: Want something in particular? Select the data files you're most interested in.
5. From here, you can check the box for Download data archive to get everything, or select specific items like Messages, Pokes, or Connections.
6. Click the Request archive button. You'll need to re-enter your password to confirm.

LinkedIn will prepare your data, which can take up to 24 hours. You’ll receive an email with a link to download your archive as a collection of CSV files. These files are neatly organized, giving you access to spreadsheets of your connections, every post you've liked, every message you've sent, and all the information from your profile history.

What’s Inside Your LinkedIn Data Archive?

Your downloaded archive is a treasure trove of information. Here's a glimpse of what you'll find in the different CSV files:

• Connections.csv: A list of all your first-degree connections, including their full name, company, position, and the date you connected.
• Messages.csv: A log of your conversations, including the sender, recipient, and the timestamp of each message.
• Reactions.csv: A history of every post you've reacted to.
• Profile.csv: All the information from your personal profile, including past positions, education, and skills.
• Shares.csv: A record of all the content you've shared on the platform.

Accessing Your Company Page Data

If you're an admin of a LinkedIn Company Page, you have access to a rich set of analytics that can inform your content and growth strategy. Unlike a bulk data download, this data is accessed through visual dashboards.

Here’s how to find it:

1. Navigate to your LinkedIn Company Page. Make sure you are viewing the page in Admin view (you should see an "Admin tools" dropdown on the right).
2. In the top navigation bar of your page, click Analytics.
3. From the dropdown, you can go into different sections: Visitors, Followers, Content, and Competitors.

You can export certain data sets directly from these dashboards. For example, in the Content analytics tab, locate the table of your post updates, and you’ll see an Export button in the top right corner. This allows you to download a spreadsheet of your post performance metrics for an extended date range, which is perfect for creating custom reports.

Example Data from Content Export:
Post Title, Link, Date, Impressions, Clicks, Click-Through Rate (CTR), Reactions, Comments, Shares, Engagement Rate
"Our Latest Industry Report", "[link]", "2023-10-26", 5432, 120, "2.21%", 85, 12, 5, "1.88%"
...

Method 2: Use Native Analytics for Deeper Insights

While data exports provide the raw numbers, LinkedIn’s built-in analytics dashboards are best for visualizing trends and understanding performance at a glance. You don't always need to download a spreadsheet to find actionable insights.

Company Page Analytics Dashboard

As a page admin, this is your mission control. It provides data that helps you understand who your audience is and what they care about.

• Visitor Analytics: This dashboard shows demographic data about who is visiting your page, even if they don't follow you. You can see their job functions, seniority, industry, and company size. It’s useful for confirming if you're attracting your target audience.
• Follower Analytics: See the demographic data for your follower base. You can also track follower growth over time. Spotting trends here - like an influx of followers from a particular industry after a content campaign - can tell you what’s working.
• Content Analytics: This is where you measure how your posts perform. It shows impressions, engagement rate, reactions, comments, and shares for each update. Sort by engagement rate to quickly identify your top-performing content and replicate its success.
• Competitor Analytics: Add a list of competitors to compare your performance against theirs. You can track their total followers and number of new followers, helping you gauge your market share and growth rate relative to others in your industry.

Personal Profile Analytics (with Creator Mode)

If you have Creator Mode turned on for your personal profile, LinkedIn provides a lightweight analytics dashboard for your content. It’s perfect for freelancers, industry leaders, and anyone building a personal brand.

After you post, you'll see a small "View analytics" button or a link showing the number of impressions below your content. Clicking on this reveals:

• Total Impressions: How many times your post was shown to users.
• Audience Demographics: Basic data on the viewers, including job titles, industries, and locations.
• Engagement Breakdown: The total number of reactions, comments, and reshares.

This immediate feedback helps you understand which topics resonate most with your network. For example, if a post about a specific industry challenge gets high engagement from "Project Managers," you've found a content angle worth expanding on.

Method 3: Leverage Third-Party Tools &, the LinkedIn API

For social media managers and marketing teams who need to manage multiple accounts or integrate LinkedIn data with other business intelligence tools, manual exports can be limiting. This is where API-based tools come in.

Understanding the LinkedIn API

An API (Application Programming Interface) is a way for different software applications to communicate with each other. LinkedIn has an API that allows approved third-party applications to access certain data and perform actions, like scheduling posts or pulling analytics.

However, getting direct access to the LinkedIn API is a complex process reserved for developers and large-scale enterprise partners. For most marketers and business owners, the practical way to use the API is through a certified third-party platform that has already done the integration work for you.

Using Social Media Management Tools

Platforms like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and others connect to LinkedIn’s API to help you manage your presence more efficiently. The key benefit is centralizing your data. Instead of logging into LinkedIn separately, you can see all your performance metrics in one cohesive dashboard, often alongside analytics from your other social platforms like Instagram, X, and Facebook.

These tools typically pull data on:

• Post Performance: Impressions, reach, engagement rate, clicks, and video views.
• Follower Growth: Track follower counts over time and compare periods.
• Audience Demographics: View the same follower insights available in LinkedIn’s native analytics.
• Reporting: Generate and schedule custom reports that compile data in a professional format, ready to share with your team or clients.

Method 4: The Risks of Web Scraping (What Not to Do)

In your search for data, you might come across services or tutorials that promote web scraping - the process of using automated bots to extract large amounts of information from websites. Scraping LinkedIn is a direct violation of its User Agreement.

While gathering publicly available data might seem harmless, LinkedIn has invested heavily in technology to detect and block scraping activities. Attempting to scrape LinkedIn profiles, job listings, or other data can lead to serious consequences:

• Account Restriction or a Permanent Ban: LinkedIn's automated systems can easily detect scraping behavior and can immediately suspend your account.
• Legal Action: LinkedIn has a history of taking legal action against companies that scrape its data, as seen in the landmark hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn case.
• Inaccurate Data: Scraped data can often be messy, incomplete, or out of date, making it unreliable for business decisions.

Instead of turning to risky and prohibited methods, stick to the LinkedIn-approved approaches: using the official data export features, analyzing insights from the native dashboards, and leveraging certified third-party tools that use the official API.

Final Thoughts

Getting data from LinkedIn is highly achievable when you know which tools to use. Whether you're downloading your personal archive for safekeeping, digging into Company Page analytics to refine your strategy, or using a management platform to get a bird's-eye view, these methods provide the information needed to grow on the platform.

We believe that making sense of your social data shouldn’t feel complicated. That’s why we designed Postbase to bring all your performance dashboards - including LinkedIn - into one clean and intuitive view. Instead of jumping between platforms, you can track what's working, see what content your audience loves, and make smarter decisions without drowning in spreadsheets.