At some point to someone you know, the issue of having to merge or close duplicate LinkedIn accounts will come up. Trust me. Here’s how to handle it.

You may discover you have more than one LinkedIn account. If you get a message that says the email address you’re attempting to use is associated with another account, this means that you probably have another LinkedIn account using that email address. This can happen if you use several different email addresses. To prevent this in the future, an email address can only be associated with one LinkedIn account.

Note: Merging your connections into another account is only available on desktop at this time. Please sign in to LinkedIn from your desktop to merge your accounts.

To find your other account(s), search for your name on LinkedIn. From your search results:

  • The profile with the You icon is the account where you’re currently signed in.
  • A profile containing your information that doesn’t have a You icon is a duplicate account.

The primary email address of both the primary account and duplicate account must be confirmed and you need to have access to both. Click the item below that best describes your situation and follow the instructions to merge your accounts:

I can sign into both accounts:

  1. In the account you want to keep, click the  Me icon at top of your LinkedIn homepage.
  2. Select Settings & Privacy from the dropdown.
  3. In Account management of Account preferences section, click Change next to Merge accounts.
  4. Enter the email address and password for the account you want to close.
  5. Click Submit.
  6. Confirm that you are closing the right account and click Continue.
  7. Enter the password of the account you want to keep to confirm that you want to merge the accounts and click Submit.

You’ll be sent a confirmation notification to the email address on your primary account.

Important: The data associated with the account you want to merge will be purged from our database. You may want to download a copy of your data of the account you want to close before you merge your accounts with us. Self-merge will only transfer the connections and email address of the account you want to close. You can download an archive of the account you want to close. Learn more about accessing your account data and how you can download your duplicate account archive.

The following items won’t be merged:

  • Profile content (written and/or media)
  • Edits
  • Endorsements
  • Recommendations
  • Saved articles

In addition, you’re unable to merge accounts with zero connections, or more than 30k connections. You’ll also lose all InMail credits upon the merge. If applicable, you’ll need to complete the following before the merge:

  • Cancel your Premium subscription first.
  • Cancel any outstanding job postings or listings.
  • Cancel all Advertising Campaigns.
  • Cancel upcoming events if you are an organizer.
  • Close group or transfer group ownership if you are a group owner.

I can’t sign in – forgot password

  1. Go to the Sign in page of the account you want to merge and close and click the Forgot Password? link.
  2. Enter the email address registered to the account you want to close and click Send code. This will send the password reset link to that email address.
  3. Once you’ve recovered access to this account, follow the on-screen instructions in the scenario above that best fits your situation.

I can’t sign in – no access to email

In order to help you merge duplicates account, we’ll need you to provide us with the email address listed on the account you’d like to close. If you aren’t sure which email you’ve registered, please use any potential email addresses linked to your account including current or previous work, school or personal email addresses. You can also try any variations on those email addresses. (i.e. – .com, .com.uk, @googlemail.com, first initial last name@, etc.).

If you remembered the email address used, but don’t have access to the email address, please follow the identity verification process.

I can sign into both accounts and one account has zero connections

To view the number of connections assigned to an account, click on the My Network tab on your LinkedIn homepage and select Connections.

  1. Sign in to the account you want to close with 0 connections
  2. Click the  Me icon at top of your LinkedIn homepage.
  3. Select Settings & Privacy from the dropdown.
  4. In Account management of the Account preferences section, click Change next to Close account..
  5. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete closing your account.

Wait 48 hours after your account is closed, then add the email address from the closed account to your remaining account. This can prevent other duplicate accounts from being created in the future.