LinkedIn is one of the most popular professional social networking sites, with over 722 million users as of April 2022. On LinkedIn, you can view other users’ profiles to learn more about their work experience, skills, education and other professional details. A common question many LinkedIn users have is whether someone can see if you viewed their profile if you later delete your account. The short answer is no, deleting your LinkedIn account erases your entire presence on the platform, including your profile views. Here is a more detailed look at how profile viewing works on LinkedIn and the impact of deleting your account.
How Profile Viewing Works on LinkedIn
When you view someone’s profile on LinkedIn, by default they are not notified or shown that you looked at their profile. There are two exceptions:
- You are in someone’s 1st-degree network on LinkedIn, meaning you are directly connected. In this case, LinkedIn shows them that you viewed their profile in the “Who’s viewed your profile” section.
- You view someone’s profile while in anonymous browsing mode, which can be enabled in your account settings. The user will see an anonymous profile viewed their profile.
Other than those two scenarios, profile viewing on LinkedIn is private by default. Users are not notified when someone views their profile who is not in their network. LinkedIn does track all profile views in their analytics on the backend, but this data is not shown to users.
Does Deleting Your LinkedIn Account Erase Your Profile Views?
When you decide to delete your LinkedIn account, all of your personal data is permanently erased from LinkedIn’s servers according to their privacy policy. This includes profile views and searches you have made while logged into your account.
After deleting your account, those views will no longer be tied to you or your profile on LinkedIn’s backend analytics. It will be as if you never viewed those profiles as far as LinkedIn and other users are concerned.
So in summary, if you delete your LinkedIn account after viewing someone’s profile who is not in your network, they will not be notified or ever know you viewed their profile.
Step-by-Step Guide to Deleting Your LinkedIn Account
Here is a step-by-step walkthrough on how to fully delete your LinkedIn account:
- Go to your LinkedIn account settings page while logged in. This can be accessed by clicking on the “Me” icon at the top of LinkedIn and selecting “Settings & Privacy”.
- Next, click on the “Account preferences” tab at the top of the page.
- Under the “Account management” section, click on “Closing your LinkedIn account”.
- On this page, select the option “Continue to account closure”.
- LinkedIn will again ask you to confirm account closure. Click “Close account”.
- Enter your account password when prompted to confirm your decision one last time.
- Your account will now be scheduled for deletion. LinkedIn states it can take up to 24 hours to fully delete all of your data from their systems.
- Once complete, your profile, connections, messages, and all personal data will be permanently removed. The process is irreversible according to LinkedIn.
So in summary, once you go through LinkedIn’s account deletion process, all record of your profile views of other users will be erased from their systems.
What Happens to Your LinkedIn Network When You Delete Your Account?
An important point to note is that deleting your LinkedIn account only removes your personal data and presence from the platform. Your connections and interactions with other users will remain intact:
- Your connections will stay linked on LinkedIn even after you delete your account. Their network size will not decrease.
- Any likes, comments, or posts you made will remain visible, but will no longer be attributed to you or show your name.
- Any private messages you sent will remain in your connections’ inboxes, but your name will be removed.
- You will be removed from any LinkedIn Groups you joined.
In summary, your network and interactions will remain, but your identity will be permanently dissociated from them once your account is deleted from LinkedIn’s systems.
Will My Connections Get a Notification When I Delete My Account?
LinkedIn will not proactively notify your 1st-degree connections when you delete your account. However, they may notice when your profile disappears from their connections list. For 2nd and 3rd-degree connections, there is no notification and they likely will not notice your absence from the platform.
Alternatives to Closing Your LinkedIn Account
Permanently deleting your LinkedIn account is irreversible. Before taking that step, you may want to explore some alternatives:
- Deactivate your account – You can temporarily deactivate your account while preserving your profile and data. Just reactivate it to restore your presence on LinkedIn.
- Increase privacy settings – Adjust your account settings to limit notifications and profile viewability to maintain privacy while staying active.
- Remove connections – You can remove some or all of your LinkedIn connections to reduce your network’s visibility into your activity.
In most cases, these options can give you more privacy without the need to permanently delete your entire LinkedIn presence. But fully deleting your account remains an option if you want to erase your profile and viewing history.
Conclusion
Deleting your LinkedIn account completely dissociates all of your personal data from the platform, including your profile views. Once your account is deleted, there will be no record that you ever viewed another user’s profile, unless they were a 1st-degree connection who got a notification. Overall, deleting your account is the only way to fully erase your LinkedIn presence and activity.