LinkedIn Transfer: Accounts, Contacts, Pages and Data

"LinkedIn transfer" is one search phrase covering at least six completely different jobs — and LinkedIn only calls one of them a "transfer". Some of what you want to move is officially supported, some has a workaround, and some is simply impossible.

This guide sorts them out, with every step traced to the official LinkedIn Help article it came from.

What "LinkedIn transfer" actually means — start here

Find your situation in the table, then read that section.

Transfer your connections to a new LinkedIn account

There is no button that copies your network from one LinkedIn account to another. According to the LinkedIn Pulse guide by Ahmad Hayat — a self-published post, not official LinkedIn guidance — LinkedIn does not provide a direct "import/export" feature for contacts between accounts, and the workaround is the Data Export tool plus manual reconnection.

The export half of that workaround is official. LinkedIn's own Help centre documents the path:

• Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage
• Select Settings & Privacy
• Click Data privacy in the left pane
• Under How LinkedIn uses your data, click Get a copy of your data
• Select Download larger data archive, including connections, verifications, contacts, account history
• Select Request archive

You then get an email at your Primary Email address with a download link.

The same LinkedIn export article is unusually candid about what the file will and won't contain:

• Missing email addresses are normal. You only see email addresses for connections who have allowed their connections to see or download their email address.
• 1st-degree only. You currently can't export a list of contacts that aren't 1st-degree connections.
• Character-set limits. CSV and vCard formats don't support extended character sets such as Chinese, Japanese or Hebrew.

On timing and what the file is good for, the second Pulse guide — again, a blog claim rather than LinkedIn documentation — says LinkedIn sends the file to your registered email within 10 minutes to 24 hours, and that you can't upload contacts directly as connections, but you can use the file to reconnect with everyone in your network.

Merge two LinkedIn accounts (the official duplicate-account flow)

The blog guides that rank for this query skip the most useful fact: LinkedIn has a real merge process for duplicate accounts.

LinkedIn Help explains that you can request a merge of duplicate accounts, with two hard requirements — the primary email address of both the primary account and the duplicate account must be confirmed, and you need to have access to both. From there LinkedIn gives separate instructions for four situations:

• I can sign into both accounts
• Forgot password
• No access to email address
• 1 account has 0 connections

Worth knowing before you deliberately run two profiles: the same LinkedIn Help article states that creating multiple profiles is not allowed as stated in LinkedIn's Professional Community Policies and User Agreement. It also warns that if you close an account, you'll no longer have access to your LinkedIn data — which is why LinkedIn suggests downloading a copy of your data before you close one.

Export your LinkedIn data before you close anything

Whatever kind of transfer you're doing, run the data download first. The timings from LinkedIn's data download Help article:

Two limits catch people out, both per LinkedIn: the download feature is not available on mobile, and it only covers your own data — no "People You May Know" and no "Who's Viewed Your Profile" data.

If you're in the EU, EEA or Switzerland there's a programmatic route too. The same LinkedIn Help article notes that LinkedIn provides an API program — the Member Portability APIs — enabling EU/EEA/Switzerland members to access their LinkedIn data programmatically.

What you permanently lose when you close a LinkedIn account

If your "transfer" plan ends with closing the old account, read this first.

LinkedIn Help is blunt: closing your account means permanently deleting your profile and removing access to all your LinkedIn information from the site. It also offers a middle path most people miss — if you have a Premium account, you can cancel the Premium access but still keep your free Basic account, retaining your profile, connections and other information.

There is a grace period, and it is narrower than it looks. Per the same LinkedIn article, you can reopen your account in most cases if it's been closed less than 14 days — but LinkedIn is unable to recover the following even if you reopen your account:

• Endorsements and recommendations
• Ignored or pending invitations
• Followings (Top Voices, Companies, etc.)
• Group memberships

Those four do not come back. No transfer method, official or otherwise, restores them.

Transfer a LinkedIn Page to someone else

There is no "transfer ownership" button on a LinkedIn Page. Ownership moves by changing admin roles.

LinkedIn Help describes the tiers:

Only a super admin can hand the keys over. According to LinkedIn, LinkedIn Page super admins add Page admins and paid media admins through the super admin view — Settings > Manage admins > Add admin — and you must be a super admin of the Page to add another admin to it.

The person you're promoting also has to be eligible. Per the same LinkedIn Help article, you can only add members who are 1st-3rd degree connections, follow the Page, aren't blocked, and whose accounts aren't flagged.

So the real handover sequence is: connect with them and get them following the Page, add them as a super admin, confirm they have access, then remove yourself. LinkedIn also notes that to become an admin of a Page you'll need to request admin access or be granted access by an existing admin — the "request access" route is the fallback when the original super admin has already left the company.

Transfer Sales Navigator data

This is the only workflow LinkedIn itself calls a data transfer.

What the options are

LinkedIn's Sales Navigator Help lists several: manual data transfers between corporate accounts, transfers from corporate accounts to personal subscriptions, multi-user subscription transfers, and a self-serve transfer from a single-user subscription to a corporate account that only works if the corporate admin has enabled it. The manual corporate-to-corporate route requires assistance from a LinkedIn support representative and a data transfer agreement.

For the common case of a new corporate license, the admin FAQ confirms that if your users already have a personal Sales Navigator subscription and the self-serve data transfer is an option, their data can be automatically transferred to their new corporate license; if the self-serve option isn't available, their data can be transferred using a manual transfer.

What actually moves

Transferring data involves moving the leads, accounts, searches and notes between Sales Navigator dashboards — and, as LinkedIn puts it, some information is not transferrable between dashboards. The full breakdown:

The two warnings that matter

LinkedIn flags that Inbox, saved searches and Smart Links data is overwritten on the destination dashboard, while lead and account lists are added to existing data on the destination dashboard, not replaced. And plainly: a data transfer might not be reversible.

Budget time, too — data transfers can take up to 48 hours to complete.

Transfer your LinkedIn account to a new phone

There is nothing to transfer. Your LinkedIn account lives on LinkedIn's servers, not on the handset — you install the app on the new phone and sign in.

Passkeys make that sign-in close to frictionless. According to LinkedIn Help, once you create and register a passkey you can log in to LinkedIn on a new device with the same passkey without needing to re-enroll the new device, and you can use the same passkey across devices to log in to LinkedIn.

Transfer your LinkedIn profile into a resume

The last common reading of "LinkedIn transfer" is turning a profile into a CV, and it's third-party territory. Kickresume, one such tool, says you simply enter the URL of your LinkedIn profile and you'll have your resume ready in no time — after which you pick a resume template and give it a personal touch.

The transfer LinkedIn will never do for you: your posts

Look back at everything above. Connections export as a CSV. Sales Navigator moves leads and notes. Page ownership moves through admin roles. Not one of those paths carries your published content — the posts, the videos, the captions you spent years writing.

That's the gap SocialGuardian fills. It automatically backs up your posts, stories and videos from all major platforms — Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitch and Pinterest, all in one place.

The setup is deliberately minimal. Per SocialGuardian, you share your @handle — just your public username, nothing else — and your posts, photos, videos and stories are captured automatically. There's no password, no OAuth and no "log in with Instagram", and the service is EU/GDPR compliant.

Then it runs on its own. SocialGuardian's features page describes content backed up automatically every day, organised by platform and date, so you can grab your full archive or restore exactly what you need — and export your full archive anytime, with no lock-in.

Getting started takes one form: pick your network — LinkedIn is in the dropdown — enter your profile handle or URL, add more profiles if you want, optionally give an email for backup confirmations, and start a 30-day free trial. No password, cancel anytime.

Prefer to look before you sign up? Browse the full feature list or start from the homepage to see how the backups are organised.