Getting too many notifications on LinkedIn can be distracting and overwhelming. While staying up-to-date on LinkedIn activity is important, sometimes you just need a break from the constant dings and pings. Fortunately, LinkedIn provides options to mute notifications temporarily or turn them off completely.
What types of notifications does LinkedIn send?
LinkedIn sends various types of notifications to keep you informed about activity happening on the platform. Some common notification types include:
- Connection requests
- Accepted connection requests
- Messages
- Mentions
- Comments on your posts
- Likes and reactions to your content
- Shares of your posts
- New followers
- Job alerts
- LinkedIn News and daily digest emails
While many of these notifications are useful, the constant stream can sometimes become overwhelming. Muting or turning off notifications provides more control over when and how you interact with LinkedIn.
Temporarily muting LinkedIn notifications
If you just need a short break from notifications, you can temporarily mute them right from the LinkedIn app or website. Here’s how:
On the mobile app
- Open the LinkedIn app on your device
- Tap your profile picture in the top left
- Tap “Settings & Privacy”
- Tap “Notifications”
- Toggle the switch next to “Notifications” off
This mutes notifications on the mobile app only. Desktop and email notifications will still come through unless muted separately.
On the website
- Click your profile picture in the top right
- Click “Settings & Privacy”
- Click “Notifications” on the left sidebar
- Toggle the switch next to “Receive notifications” to the off position
Again, this setting only applies to notifications on LinkedIn.com. Mobile and email notifications are controlled separately.
When you’re ready to start receiving notifications again, just go back to the same setting and toggle it on.
Permanently turning off specific notification types
If certain LinkedIn notifications consistently aren’t useful for you, you can permanently disable them:
On mobile
- Open the LinkedIn app
- Tap your profile picture in the top left
- Tap “Settings & Privacy”
- Tap “Notifications”
- Review the different notification types and tap the switch next to any you want to turn off
On desktop
- Click your profile picture in the top right
- Click “Settings & Privacy”
- Click “Communications” on the left sidebar
- Locate the “Email preferences” section
- Toggle off any email notification types you want to disable
Common email notifications to consider disabling include:
- Daily or weekly digests summarizing notifications
- Notifications when you gain a new follower
- Notifications when someone shares your post
- Comment notifications on posts or articles
Evaluate which ones are most helpful for staying updated vs. which ones are just clutter.
Customizing notification frequency
Beyond completely muting notifications, you can also customize how frequently you receive certain notification types:
- Real-time: Get notifications immediately as they happen.
- Daily digest: Get a summary of notifications delivered once a day.
- Weekly digest: Get a summary of notifications once a week.
- Off: Disable notifications for that type entirely.
Here’s how to update notification frequency on desktop:
- Click your profile picture > Settings & Privacy
- Click Communications on the left
- Locate Email Preferences and click “Edit email settings”
- For each notification type, choose a frequency
- Click Save
Less frequent digests often strike a good balance between staying in the loop while reducing noise.
Silencing desktop notifications
Even if you keep LinkedIn notifications turned on, you may want to disable distracting desktop notifications that pop up on your computer outside of LinkedIn.com. Here’s how to turn those off:
- Click your profile picture > Settings & Privacy
- Click Communications on the left
- Scroll down and toggle off “Receive desktop notifications”
This prevents LinkedIn from sending pop-up notifications on your desktop. However, you’ll still get email and in-app notifications.
Using Do Not Disturb to mute notifications
LinkedIn’s Do Not Disturb setting is a quick way to mute notifications when you need to focus. Turning this on:
- Mutes desktop, mobile, and email notifications
- Sends an auto-reply to incoming messages
- Prevents notifications from showing as “unread”
To enable Do Not Disturb:
- Click your profile picture > Settings & Privacy
- Click Communications on the left sidebar
- Toggle “Do Not Disturb” on
- Select when to automatically enable it (like during certain hours)
This is perfect for short-term silencing when you need to focus without missing anything important.
Using Focus Mode for distraction-free reading
Focus Mode minimizes distracting interface elements when reading articles on LinkedIn to help you focus:
- While reading an article, click the Focus Mode icon in the top right
- The interface will hide elements like comments and reactions
- Click the Focus Mode icon again to return to normal
Use this when you want to deeply read an article without other activity cluttering up the page.
Disabling LinkedIn email newsletters
If LinkedIn’s various email newsletters are cluttering up your inbox, you can easily unsubscribe from them:
- Go to your LinkedIn notifications settings
- Click “Email preferences” and then “Edit email settings”
- Scroll down and toggle off any email newsletters you want to unsubscribe from
Some emails to potentially disable include:
- LinkedIn Daily Rundown and Weekly Rundown with top news
- LinkedIn columnists sharing leadership advice
- LinkedIn Learning courses and learning paths
Cut down on extraneous emails to clean up your inbox.
Using Slack integration to control notifications
If your company uses Slack and LinkedIn integrations, you can control LinkedIn notifications right within Slack settings:
- Go to your Slack preferences
- Click “Integrations”
- Select the LinkedIn integration
- Toggle off any specific LinkedIn notifications you want to stop receiving in Slack
You can also mute the integration entirely or customize which hours you receive notifications.
Managing notifications as a LinkedIn Admin
As a LinkedIn Admin for your organization, you have additional tools to control notifications your employees receive:
- Select which LinkedIn notification types employees can enable
- Limit integration notifications sent through communication platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams
- Customize the frequency of digest emails employees receive
Carefully managing notifications for employees helps avoid distractions while still allowing important updates. Work with your IT team to explore Admin controls.
Don’t forget to check back in
While limiting LinkedIn notifications can provide a needed break, be sure to check back in occasionally so you don’t miss important updates and messages. Set aside time each day to catch up, and modify your notification settings as needed to find the right balance for your needs.