Merging or Deleting a Duplicate LinkedIn Account

Multiple LinkedIn accounts. It happens. Whether you mistakenly created a second account or you just forgot you had one, duplicate LinkedIn accounts run rampant!

The question you probably have is: How do I merge or delete a duplicate LinkedIn account?

First off, you can’t merge LinkedIn accounts… At least not totally.

LinkedIn will sometimes help you merge two accounts. But that’s just moving connections from one account to another. They won’t touch your recommendations, work experience, pending invitations, or group memberships.

Ultimately, if you want to merge two accounts, it is best to do it manually. If you still want to ask LinkedIn for help, all you have to do is contact them via their help desk. Provide them with the primary email addresses of all accounts and identify which account you want to keep. To do it yourself, keep reading…

How To Manually Merge Two LinkedIn Accounts

1. DETERMINE which account you want to keep and which account you will eventually delete. I would suggest keeping the account with more connections.
2. LOG IN to the account you will eventually delete.
3. EXPORT your connections list. Contacts > Connections > Export Connections
(Remember where you save this CSV file)
4. SAVE any sections of your LinkedIn profile you wish to reuse. Profile > Edit Profile. Copy the text you want to keep and paste it into a Word document for later use.
5. DOCUMENT any recommendations you received. Contacts > Recommendations Copy and paste the recommendations into a Word document for later use.
6. RECORD the Groups to which you belong. Groups > Your Groups
7. PROCESS any email in your LinkedIn Inbox.
8. CLOSE your Account. Settings > Account > Close Your Account

Now that you have all the old information recorded, it’s time to enter it into the LinkedIn account you want to keep.

1. LOG IN to the LinkedIn account that you are merging into.
2. UPLOAD your connections. Contacts > Add Contacts > Any Email > Upload Contacts. Remember that CSV file? That’s the one you want to select.
3. PASTE your old profile. Profile > Edit Profile (Rather than copying & pasting, you can hire a LinkedIn profile writer to write your profile)
4. REQUEST new recommendations. Contacts > Recommendations In the request, paste the old recommendation the person wrote so they can easily repost it.
5. JOIN the Groups you had been a member of prior. Groups > Group Directory

Congrats! You have just successfully merged two LinkedIn Accounts!

But I Can’t Access My Duplicate LinkedIn Account!

Oh no, Mr Bill! You can’t login to that duplicate account? Don’t worry, I have a few tricks up my sleeve for you.

Tip #1

1. Attempt to log in to LinkedIn using an old email address and your typical password.
2. If the password is incorrect, choose Forgot Password.
3. If you get an alert that the email address is incorrect, keep trying with alternate email addresses you use.
4. Check the inbox of your alternate email inbox for an email to reset your password. Follow the directions to reset the password.

Tip #2

Can’t figure out the right email?

1. Login to your main LinkedIn account
2. Perform a search for your duplicate account.
3. Are you already a connection with the duplicate account? If so, open that duplicate profile and check out the Contact information. Is there an email listed That’s the email you used to register the account.
4. Log out and try logging in again using that email address.

Tip #3

Still can’t figure out the right email? Maybe you no longer have access to that old email?
It happens, no worries. We have one more option… LINKEDIN TECH SUPPORT!

1. Contact LinkedIn Tech Support
2. Provide them the following information:

• The URL for the profile you want to remove (e.g. https://www.linkedin.com/abc123).
• The email address(es) associated with that account.
• Your name as it appears on LinkedIn, and any alternate names you may have used.

3. Sit back and wait. LinkedIn is quite notorious for taking their time answering tech support tickets.

There you have it!

Your duplicate LinkedIn account should now be history! I’d love to hear how this process went for you. Were you able to do it on your own or did you need to contact LinkedIn? Was LinkedIn helpful?

Just scroll down to leave your comments!