How to get your LinkedIn data

A couple of minutes to ask. Then a wait — LinkedIn takes up to 24 hours.

LinkedIn will give you your connections as a file. You ask for it once, it arrives by email, and you drop it into Kith. From then on Kith knows everyone in it — and you decide who goes on your map.

Ask for the larger archive. LinkedIn used to let you tick Connections on its own and send it within minutes. It no longer does: the pick-what-you-want list is down to articles, invitations, profile, recommendations and registration, and your connections now come only in the big archive. That one takes longer — up to 24 hours, though it is often sooner. Ask for it, then go and do something else.

Ask LinkedIn for the file

1. Go to linkedin.com/mypreferences/d/download-my-data. You can also get there from the Me menu → Settings & Privacy → Data privacy → Get a copy of your data.
2. Choose the first option — “Download larger data archive, including connections, verifications, contacts, account history…”. Do not use “Want something in particular?” below it: connections are not on its list any more.
3. Click Request archive and confirm your password if asked.
4. Wait for the email from LinkedIn. The archive can take up to 24 hours, so this is not a sit-and-wait step. Its link is good for 72 hours once it lands.
5. Download the file it gives you. Don't unzip it, and don't rename it.

Give it to Kith

Open Kith and drop the file into a conversation, the same way you'd send a photo. Kith reaches into the archive, finds the connections file itself, and tells you how many people it read.

It does not put them all on your map. The import becomes a private list Kith can consult, the way it consults your phone's contacts — so it can answer questions about anyone in it, and when you do save someone it already knows their company and role without asking you.

Then ask for the ones you want

Putting people on the map is a separate thing, and you ask for it in plain words. All of them at once if you like — or a slice, which is usually the better idea when the file runs to thousands:

• "Add everyone I connected with this year."
• "Add everyone at Stripe."
• "Add the designers."
• "Add all of them."

Whichever you ask for, Kith creates the people, their companies, and the works-at links between them in one go. Nobody is messaged and nothing is posted anywhere — the map is yours alone.

Importing everyone and hiding who you don't want is one of two ways to build a map; the other is one person at a time, as you meet them. Which one depends on what you want from it.

If something goes wrong

The email hasn't arrived

Check spam, then give it time: the larger archive can take up to 24 hours, and there is no faster route now that connections have left the pick-your-own list. If a day has passed with nothing, ask again from the same page.

Kith says it can't find the connections

It is looking for a file called Connections.csv, either on its own or inside the archive LinkedIn sent. If you unzipped the archive by hand, send that one file instead of the folder. If you renamed the archive, send the original download.

I imported twice — is everyone doubled?

No. Each export is a complete snapshot, so a new import replaces the previous one rather than stacking on top of it. People already on your map stay where they are.

Some people have no email address

Expected. LinkedIn only includes an address for connections who chose to share it. Everything else — name, company, role, connection date — comes through either way.

Kith doesn't know where someone lives

Also expected: the export has no location field at all. Company and role are in there, a town is not, and Kith will say so rather than guess one from an employer.

What Kith does with it

The file goes to your own encrypted store and nowhere else. It is not shared with other people on Kith, it is not used to train anything, and deleting your account deletes it along with everything else. The details are in the Privacy Policy.

LinkedIn changes this page's wording from time to time — the section has also been called "Download your data". If the labels here no longer match what you see, tell us and we'll fix them.