Export your LinkedIn connections with a clear purpose

Choose the job before collecting the file

For a year-end reflection, you might want to remember people you connected with or verify a relationship’s chronology. A connection date cannot establish who influenced your work, purchased your product or engaged with a particular post. Start with a specific question rather than turning the export into a universal audience dataset.

The workflow here uses your own official account export. It does not require giving another service your password, collecting other members’ private details or enriching absent addresses. If a small manually maintained list answers the question, the larger archive may be unnecessary.

Request through the account’s own controls

On desktop, open Settings & Privacy, then Data privacy and the account-data download controls. LinkedIn’s connections-specific help currently points to the larger archive. Request it from the intended account and follow the delivered download instructions. This is not a mobile export workflow.

The general download help and the connections-specific guide use slightly different control names. Follow the purpose of the account-data control rather than searching indefinitely for one exact English label. If the interface differs, consult the linked current help; do not install an unrelated exporter just to bypass that mismatch.

1. Confirm the signed-in account and that the computer is private.
2. Open the account-data download controls and request the archive that includes connections.
3. Use the official delivery notice to retrieve it when ready.
4. Keep the archive in private storage and inspect its actual files before importing anything.

Inspect the fields before using the rows

LinkedIn describes connections data as first-degree connection information and explains that email inclusion depends on each member’s settings. Its broader download also contains other categories; imported contacts and followers should not be silently merged into the connections list.

Open the connections file locally and inspect its header, character display, date representation and a few rows. When a spreadsheet lets you choose import types, treat profile links and names as text. Do not accept automatic changes to a date or identifier without checking the original value.

A blank email stays blank. Record an uncertainty when a field is missing or ambiguous. A connection is not evidence of permission for a marketing message; this guide does not turn an account export into an outreach authorization.

For a bounded local check, use the inspector below. It reads one comma-separated UTF-8 file, reports structural counts and never displays cell values in its result. Select the actual heading record and optional exact-key/email columns from your local file; do not assume the example’s positions apply to a delivered archive. Large or unsupported files are rejected, not silently sampled.

Handle delivery and missing files without inventing a guarantee

The current official download help gives a general larger-download window of 24 hours, while its category table places Connections under 48 hours. These are the help page’s different descriptions, not a guarantee from this guide. Follow the request-specific notice. The page says a delivered download remains available for 72 hours; retrieve it through the official account flow.

If the notice has expired, return to the signed-in account’s own download controls. If a category is absent, check what you requested and whether it applies to that account. Contacts imported from an address book and Member Follows are different categories from first-degree Connections. Do not substitute one file and keep the same label.

If the file opens in one spreadsheet column, stop and check its delimiter/import preview rather than interpreting the result as one connection. If characters, dates or fields look damaged, keep the original and use the related CSV import guide. If email cells are blank, leave them blank; the file cannot establish why a particular member’s value is absent.

Follow the complete fictional inspection before using your archive

The downloadable exercise is explicitly fictional and contains no account export. It has a notice at CSV record 1, seven headings at record 2 and four data records. Choose heading record 2, exact-key column 3 and email column 4. A quoted comma and a quoted internal line break make simple comma/newline splitting unsuitable.

The expected result is four matching-width data records, no width mismatches, one identical-row group with one extra record, and one repeated exact-key group with one extra record. Those last two counts overlap; do not add them. Two different references share the name Mira Demo and stay separate. Three email cells are blank; one contains a fictional address, which proves no deliverability or consent.

The harmless =1+1 exercise at record 6, field 5 produces one formula-like flag. The inspector does not execute it or rewrite the file. A no-flags result would not certify spreadsheet safety. The source ZIP includes the exact 473-byte UTF-8 example, expected counts, source and eleven checks that run locally without an account or package installation on the documented Node version.

Create a minimal reflection list

Fictional task: identify people whose public feedback changed your onboarding explanation this year. The connections export can help locate profiles, but the evidence for the contribution lives in the actual feedback. It cannot rank those contributions for you.

Make a separate private working list with only a profile reference, the source you checked, the contribution in your own words and a decision about public credit. For example: “Fictional person A — original comment verified — identified an ambiguous instruction — ask before naming in the recap.” Do not copy every address and unrelated personal field into that list.

Check apparent duplicates using the profile reference and context, not the display name alone. Two people can share a name, and one person can appear under a changed name. Leave an unresolved match unresolved rather than merging confidently on an incomplete clue.

Finish with the useful result, not a sprawling copy

Review the working list against the original sources, then delete temporary copies you no longer need. If you need to retain the archive, choose access and storage appropriate for its contents. Do not put it in a public repository, a shared recap attachment or a general-purpose upload field.

For public gratitude, use only the approved relevant detail. A supporter ranking based on collected interactions and a first-degree connection export describe different things. Neither is a complete map of the people who mattered to your year.

The outcome is a checked private reference list or an explicit unresolved gap. No connection, email, download or import here proves a new customer, a sent message or a consented campaign.