Export LinkedIn Contacts: How to Download, Save & Use Your Network

Why You Should Export Your LinkedIn Contacts

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Your LinkedIn connections represent years of networking, conversations, and professional growth. Exporting them ensures you never lose access to this valuable data and can make the most of your network outside of the platform.

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Here are some key reasons why it’s worth doing:

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• Backup and Security – If your account ever gets hacked, suspended, or you accidentally lose access, having an exported copy of your contacts keeps your network safe.
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• Easy Organization – Downloaded contacts can be stored in a spreadsheet or CRM, making it simpler to categorize, filter, and prioritize outreach.
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• Outreach starting point – Exported contacts give you a working list for email campaigns, personalized follow-ups, and re-engagement sequences. Instead of messaging one person at a time inside LinkedIn, you work the list efficiently.
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• Independence from LinkedIn – By keeping a local copy, you’re not entirely dependent on LinkedIn’s platform or policies to access your professional network.
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• Business Growth Opportunities – A well-managed contact list gives you more ways to re-engage with your network and uncover new leads or partnerships.

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Regularly exporting your contacts is a proactive way to protect the time and effort you’ve invested in building your LinkedIn network, and a first step toward turning those connections into real opportunities.

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How To Export LinkedIn Contacts

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If you want to download and save your LinkedIn contacts, LinkedIn makes it easy by allowing you to export your connection data directly from your account settings. Here’s a quick step-by-step guide:
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Open the “Me” menu

At the top of your LinkedIn homepage, you’ll see the “Me” menu, identified by your profile picture. Click it to access your account settings.

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Click “Settings & Privacy,” then “Data privacy”

From the dropdown, select “Settings & Privacy.” Once inside, navigate to the Data privacy tab where LinkedIn manages how your information is stored and shared.

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Scroll down to “How LinkedIn uses your data”

In the Data privacy section, scroll until you find the “How LinkedIn uses your data” heading. This is where LinkedIn allows you to manage and download your personal data.

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Select “Get a copy of your data”

Click on “Get a copy of your data” to start the process of exporting your LinkedIn contacts.

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Click “Want something in particular?”

LinkedIn gives you the option to download all of your data or only specific items. Choose “Want something in particular?” so you can export just your contacts.

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Choose “Connections” (and “Imported Contacts” if needed)

Select “Connections” to export a list of all your first-degree LinkedIn contacts. If you’ve also uploaded your own contacts to LinkedIn in the past, you can choose “Imported Contacts” as well.

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Click “Request archive”

After making your selections, click “Request archive.” LinkedIn will begin preparing your file.

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Enter your password and select “Done”

For security purposes, LinkedIn will ask you to re-enter your account password. Once you confirm, click “Done.”

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After completing these steps, LinkedIn will email you a downloadable file containing your contacts’ information (limited to what they’ve chosen to share).

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It usually takes around 10 minutes to receive, but if it doesn’t show up, check your spam or promotions folder.

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⚠️ Note: LinkedIn only allows you to export your own first-degree connections. You cannot download someone else’s LinkedIn contacts.

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What Data Does LinkedIn Actually Export?

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Once your archive arrives, open the "Connections" CSV file. You'll find seven data fields:

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1. First Name
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2. Last Name
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3. Email Address
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4. Company
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5. Position
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6. Connected On (date)
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7. LinkedIn Profile URL

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Two things will catch you off guard. First, the data isn't cleaned — company names and job titles often have inconsistencies you'll need to fix before importing into a CRM.

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Second, most emails will be blank. LinkedIn only includes a contact's email if they've explicitly chosen to share it with their connections. According to industry estimates, roughly 30% of LinkedIn users share their email addresses. For everyone else, you'll see an empty field.

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If you need professional emails for your exported contacts, see the enrichment options in the phone numbers section below.

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How to Export LinkedIn Contacts to Excel

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LinkedIn's archive downloads as a .CSV file, which opens directly in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. No conversion required.

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Once you've downloaded the archive using the steps above:

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1. Locate the ZIP file in your downloads folder and extract it.
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2. Inside the extracted folder, find the file named "Connections.csv."
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3. Double-click to open it in Excel, or right-click and select "Open with" to choose Excel manually.
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4. Your contacts will populate in a spreadsheet with the seven standard fields: First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Company, Position, Connected On, and LinkedIn URL.
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To clean the data before use:

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- Delete the first four rows — LinkedIn includes a disclaimer header that throws off column formatting.
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- Sort by "Company" or "Position" to group contacts for segmentation.
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- Filter the Email Address column to identify which contacts have a visible email and which don't.

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If you're exporting to build a cold outreach list, keep in mind that the email addresses you receive are likely personal Gmail or Outlook addresses, not verified business emails. For professional email addresses, you'll need to enrich the data using a tool like Apollo.io or Hunter.io after the export.

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How to Import LinkedIn Contacts into Gmail

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If you want your LinkedIn connections available in your Gmail contacts, the process takes about two minutes.

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1. Export your LinkedIn contacts using the steps above and download the "Connections.csv" file.
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2. Open Gmail and click the Google Apps icon (the 3x3 grid) in the top-right corner.
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3. Click "Contacts" to open Google Contacts.
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4. In the left sidebar, click "Import."
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5. Click "Select file," choose your Connections.csv file, and click "Import."

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Your LinkedIn contacts will now appear in Google Contacts with their name, company, job title, and email address (where available). From there, you can compose emails directly from Gmail without switching back to LinkedIn.

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One caveat: Gmail will import all contacts in the file, including those without email addresses. You may want to filter the CSV first to remove rows with empty email fields before importing — otherwise you'll end up with contacts that don't have actionable data in Gmail.

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How to Export LinkedIn Contacts with Phone Numbers

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LinkedIn does not provide phone numbers in its native CSV export. Even if a contact has added a phone number to their profile, LinkedIn doesn't include it in the data archive.

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Why most emails are missing too

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The same logic applies to emails. LinkedIn only includes contact details your connections have actively chosen to share. According to data from the prospecting community, roughly 30% of LinkedIn users share their email address with connections — and far fewer share phone numbers. For a list of 1,000 connections, expect fewer than 300 emails and almost no phone numbers in your raw export.

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How to get missing emails and phone numbers

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The standard workaround is data enrichment — matching your exported LinkedIn profiles against external business databases to find verified professional emails and, in some cases, direct dial numbers.

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Tools commonly used for this:

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- Apollo.io — Upload your CSV, and Apollo matches against its database of 275M+ contacts to return verified work emails and phone numbers.
- Hunter.io — Email finder focused on professional addresses; works well for enriching company-domain emails.
- Kaspr — LinkedIn-native enrichment; particularly strong for European contacts and GDPR compliance.
- PhantomBuster — Automation tool that can visit profiles at scale and pull available public data, then pipe it into an email finder.

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A compliance note: When enriching contact data for outreach, GDPR and CAN-SPAM apply. For B2B purposes — reaching out to someone in their professional capacity — legitimate interest is generally an accepted basis under GDPR. That said, always include an unsubscribe option and respect opt-outs.

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For a deeper look at the tools available for finding contact information, see Cleverly's breakdown of [email finder tools](https://www.cleverly.co/blog/email-finder-tools).

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How to Transfer LinkedIn Contacts to Another Account

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If you have a duplicate LinkedIn account, you can transfer your contacts from one to the other with just a few extra steps.

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First, download the connections from the account you want to transfer, following the steps above. Make sure you export them into a .CSV file so they're saved on your computer.

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LinkedIn should automatically generate a file that's structured to correctly add the contacts to your other account. The file should include each contact's first and last name and email, but you can go into the spreadsheet and add phone numbers and additional information.

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Next:

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1. Open the "My Network" menu at the top of your homepage, then click "Connections."
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2. Find the "Your contact import is ready" section."
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3. Click "More options," then click "Upload a file."
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4. Select the .CSV file with your contacts and click "Upload file."

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This will automatically upload the information from the spreadsheet into LinkedIn, saving you significant time compared to inputting that information by hand.

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How to Export Contacts From LinkedIn Sales Navigator

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LinkedIn Sales Navigator is LinkedIn's premium prospecting product, built for sales teams who need advanced search filters and lead management tools beyond what a standard account offers. If you upgrade your LinkedIn Account, you can choose to upgrade to Sales Navigator to unlock a variety of sales and analytics tools to make it easier to build connections with your clients.

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The contacts saved to your Sales Navigator account are even more important than those on a standard profile. Sales Navigator contacts are critical to your business because they are often the primary way you'll communicate with those customers.

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You should regularly export your contacts from LinkedIn Sales Navigator to ensure you can stay in communication even if something happens to your account.

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Currently, there is no native way to export account and lead information from Sales Navigator off of LinkedIn directly into a spreadsheet.

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However, certain Sales Navigator accounts allow you to sync data between your CRM and the platform. Your CRM will likely allow you to export your contact information directly.

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You can also use external tools to collect your lead and contact information. Valuable tools for exporting this information include Wiza and PhantomBuster.

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How To Export LinkedIn Contacts From Search Results?

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While LinkedIn allows you to export your first-degree connections directly through account settings, many users want to extract contact information from search results; for example, when you’re filtering people by industry, job title, or location.

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Here’s what you need to know:

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Can You Export Contacts Directly From LinkedIn Search?

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By default, LinkedIn does not allow you to download or export contacts directly from search results. The platform restricts data exports to only your own first-degree connections via the “Get a copy of your data” feature in settings.

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Workarounds for Exporting from Search Results

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If you want to save or organize search results, you have a few options:

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• Manual Saving: You can go through your search results and manually save profiles by bookmarking or adding them to a spreadsheet. While time-consuming, this method ensures accuracy and compliance with LinkedIn’s policies.
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• LinkedIn’s Lead Lists (Sales Navigator): If you have LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can save profiles from your search results into Lead Lists. This doesn’t give you direct contact information, but it helps you organize prospects for future outreach.
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• Third-Party Tools: Some tools and extensions claim to extract search results into spreadsheets. However, be cautious—many of these violate LinkedIn’s terms of service and can put your account at risk. Always choose compliant, secure solutions if you decide to use automation.

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Best Practice

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For compliance and safety, the most reliable way to export contacts is still by downloading your own first-degree connections.

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If your goal is lead generation, consider using LinkedIn Sales Navigator for advanced workflow search and list-building, then combine it with a trusted LinkedIn outreach partner like Cleverly to turn those prospects into sales opportunities.

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What to Do With Exported LinkedIn Contacts

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Exporting is step one. The contacts sitting in a CSV file on your desktop aren't doing anything yet.

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Here are five things worth doing with the data.

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1. Import into a CRM

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A spreadsheet is not a pipeline. Move your exported contacts into a CRM — HubSpot, Salesforce, or a lighter tool like Close or folk — so you can track conversations, set follow-up reminders, and segment by deal stage. Once they're in a CRM, your LinkedIn contacts stop being a static list and start being a living pipeline.

2. Enrich for professional emails and phone numbers

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Most of your exported contacts won't have email addresses. Run the list through an enrichment tool (Apollo.io, Hunter.io, or Kaspr) to fill in verified business emails. This takes a flat contact list and makes it actionable for cold outreach.

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One useful stat: B2B contact data decays at roughly 22.5% per year, according to HubSpot research. If you're working from a list you exported six months ago, roughly 10% of it is already stale. Run re-enrichment every three to six months to keep the data current.

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3. Build a targeted outreach sequence

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Once you have professional emails, you can take your LinkedIn first-degree connections and run them through a cold email sequence — people who already know your name from LinkedIn are warmer than a cold prospect list pulled from a database. Acceptance rates on follow-up emails to existing LinkedIn connections tend to outperform cold lists significantly. For guidance on building outreach sequences that convert, see Cleverly's LinkedIn outreach guide.

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4. Back up your network before something goes wrong

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LinkedIn accounts get restricted. They get hacked. And sometimes — more often than you'd expect — people get locked out of accounts they've been building for years. A regular export (every three to six months) gives you a backup that doesn't depend on LinkedIn. If your account goes down, you still have names, companies, and emails.

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5. Segment and re-engage by role or industry

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Your LinkedIn connections aren't one audience. An exported spreadsheet lets you filter by company, job title, or connection date and run targeted re-engagement campaigns to specific segments. Former colleagues in one column, prospects from your industry in another, referral partners in a third. Segmenting before outreach means your messages don't read like they were sent to everyone.

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Protect Your Connections by Downloading LinkedIn Contacts Regularly

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Your LinkedIn network is one of your most valuable professional assets. If your account ever gets hacked, restricted, or corrupted, you risk losing years of hard work building those relationships.

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That’s why it’s smart to regularly download your LinkedIn contacts and back them up in a secure place—whether that’s your personal device, a spreadsheet, or your CRM.

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By doing so, you’re not only protecting your data but also setting yourself up to put those connections to work for future opportunities. Having your contacts organized makes it easier to reach out, re-engage, or move conversations off LinkedIn.

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And if you’re looking to go beyond simply storing contacts, Cleverly can help you turn that network into a steady stream of qualified leads.

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Our LinkedIn lead generation services use data-driven targeting and personalized outreach to turn your connections into booked meetings. Your network has already done the hard work of warming up — we handle the rest.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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