LinkedIn is a social networking site with a completely different perspective than others. It lets people seek employment and help businesses hire employers easily by posting jobs. It’s not limited to this only, but LinkedIn has emerged as one of the main sources for networking professionals to learn new skills and grow their business.
But, as it’s very clear that this is not a social networking site for entertainment and fun so if you mistakenly created your LinkedIn account and now looking to close it, this article will help you do so. In this article, I will guide you on how to close your LinkedIn account easily.
In case, you just don’t want to permanently close your LinkedIn account but to take a short break by making your LinkedIn profile inactive for a short time, you can temporarily deactivate it as well. Deactivating your LinkedIn account temporarily simply means hiding your LinkedIn profile and activity from others until you activate it back.
So, let’s learn how to temporarily deactivate or permanently close your LinkedIn account easily.
How to Close Your LinkedIn Account Permanently?
Very first, we will learn about how to close your LinkedIn account permanently. So, if you’ve decided to close your LinkedIn account permanently, you can do it through your LinkedIn account settings.
If you’re using LinkedIn on a desktop, see the steps below:
- Once you’re logged in to your LinkedIn account, click on your profile picture on the top right side of your screen and choose the Settings & Privacy option out there.
- Now, on the LinkedIn Settings page, click the Account preferences option from the left and navigate to the Account management area which will let you control your LinkedIn account.
- Here, you’ll see a Close account option on the right side. Click on it and follow the instructions shown on the ‘Close account’ page such as tell them why you want to close your account and then confirm your LinkedIn password to successfully close your LinkedIn account.
Even if you’re using LinkedIn on your phone, you’ll need to follow the same procedure. On your LinkedIn phone app, tap on your profile picture, go to Settings, tap Account preferences, and then scroll down to the Account management option to close your LinkedIn account. It’s that simple.
How to Temporarily Deactivate Your LinkedIn Account?
This is the best option to take a short break from LinkedIn. By temporarily deactivating your LinkedIn account, you will hide your LinkedIn profile and activity from other members. The steps to temporarily deactivate your LinkedIn account is almost similar to closing a LinkedIn account as described above.
If you’re using LinkedIn on your desktop, follow the steps below to deactivate your LinkedIn account temporarily.
- After logging in to your LinkedIn account, click on your profile picture and navigate to the Settings & Privacy option.
- On the Settings page, navigate to Account preferences > Account management.
- You’ll see three options inside Account management; Merge accounts, Hibernate account, and Close account. Click on the ‘Hibernate account‘ option to proceed with deactivating your LinkedIn account temporarily.
- In the next steps, LinkedIn will ask you why you want to deactivate your account and then you’ll have to enter your LinkedIn password to confirm deactivation.
If you want to hibernate or deactivate your LinkedIn account using the LinkedIn mobile app, it’s not possible at the moment. The Hibernate feature is only optimized for the desktop version.
That’s all about deactivating your LinkedIn account temporarily. Once you deactivated your LinkedIn account, your profile name will be replaced by ‘A LinkedIn Member’ and your profile picture will be hidden. Nobody can be able to view any of your previous activities until your account is deactivated.
To reactivate your LinkedIn account again, you can simply log in to your account. It means, as soon as you will log in back to your LinkedIn account, it will be reactivated automatically and your profile and activity will again be visible to everyone as before.
