How to Export LinkedIn Contacts in 2026: Full Guide

Key Findings

Export your connections in ten minutes, for free

Settings and Privacy, then Data privacy, then Get a copy of your data, tick Connections, request the archive. LinkedIn emails a CSV with names, companies, titles, and shared emails. It is your insurance against a lockout.

The export is thin on purpose

First-degree connections only, no phone numbers, and emails only where the contact chose to share them. Expect 60 to 80% email fill. Plan to enrich the gaps rather than rely on the raw file.

Sales Navigator has no export button

Use a CRM sync on higher plans, or a tool like Wiza, Evaboot, or Clay to pull a saved search into a clean CSV with verified emails. Filter the search tight before you export. A small, well-filtered list beats a big loose one.

Signal first, then send

A clean list is not a list worth emailing. Filter to contacts showing a job change, funding, or recent activity before outreach. Primal hit 4.57x ROI and cut acquisition cost 35% on small, signal-based lists.

One channel underperforms, combined channels win

A lone LinkedIn message or cold email lags. Cold email, LinkedIn, and cold calling combined hit 25 to 47% reply rates across our campaigns, including a Thailand pilot at 47% LinkedIn reply when paired with email.

You spent years building a LinkedIn network. It lives on a platform you do not own.

If your account gets restricted tomorrow, every connection, every warm relationship, every prospect you have ever talked to goes dark with it. That is the real reason to export your LinkedIn contacts, and most people only learn it the week they get locked out.

The good news: pulling your full connection list takes about ten minutes and costs nothing. The catch: LinkedIn hands you a thin file (names and the emails people chose to share, no phone numbers) and gives you nothing native for Sales Navigator. This guide covers how to export from LinkedIn properly in 2026, how to get Sales Navigator leads out despite the missing button, and how to turn a raw contact list into LinkedIn outreach that books meetings.

Why export your LinkedIn contacts at all

Your LinkedIn network is a B2B asset. Treat it like one.

LinkedIn passed 1 billion members in 2026. For a salesperson, founder, or recruiter, the first-degree slice of that is the most valuable contact database you have, and it is the one you have the least control over. Three reasons to get a copy on your own machine:

Account risk is real. Restrictions, hacks, and accidental policy strikes happen. A local export means a lockout costs you access, not your network.
A spreadsheet beats the LinkedIn UI for analysis. Sorting 2,000 connections by company, title, or region in a CSV takes seconds. Doing it inside LinkedIn is painful.
Your CRM is where the network earns money. A list sitting in LinkedIn does nothing. The same list synced to your CRM feeds lead generation, account mapping, and outreach.

You do not need to do this often. A quarterly export keeps your backup current without turning into a chore.

How to export contacts from LinkedIn (the connections archive)

LinkedIn lets you download your account data, including your full connection list, from the data privacy section of your settings. The site emails you a link to the file. Here is the exact path in 2026:

Click the Me icon (your profile photo) at the top of the LinkedIn homepage.
Choose Settings and Privacy, then open Data privacy.
Under How LinkedIn uses your data, click Get a copy of your data.
Select Want something in particular? and tick Connections. You can also tick Imported Contacts if you want the address-book data you previously synced.
Click Request archive, enter your password, and confirm.

LinkedIn processes the request and emails a download link to your registered address. The connections file usually arrives within ten minutes. Larger archives (posts, messages, activity) can take up to 24 hours. If it does not show up, check spam and filtered folders.

A few limits worth knowing before you rely on this file:

You can only export your own first-degree connections. Not second-degree, not someone else's network.
Email addresses are optional on the contact's side. If a connection chose not to share their email, the field is blank. Expect 60 to 80% fill, not 100%.
Phone numbers are no longer included. LinkedIn removed contact phone numbers from the export years ago. More on the workaround below.
CSV and vCard can mangle non-Latin characters. Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, and Arabic names sometimes break. Open the file as UTF-8 to reduce this.

How to export from LinkedIn into Excel

Once the email lands, getting the data into a spreadsheet takes three steps.

Click Download your data archive in the LinkedIn email. It sends you back to the Get a copy of your data page, now showing a Download archive button.
Click Download archive and save the file. It downloads as a .zip containing a Connections.csv.
Open Connections.csv in Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers. You get columns for first name, last name, email (where shared), company, position, and the date you connected.

That Connected On date column is more useful than it looks. Sort by it to separate the people you have known for years from the ones you barely spoke to. The first group will take a direct email. The second group needs warming up before you reach out.

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What you can export	How you get it	What is included
First-degree connections	Data privacy archive (Connections)	Name, company, title, connect date, email if shared
Imported contacts	Data privacy archive (Imported Contacts)	Address-book data you previously synced
Posts, messages, activity	Full data archive request	Delivered in up to 24 hours, separate from connections
Phone numbers	Not in the export	Check public profiles or use an enrichment tool
Sales Navigator leads	No native export	Requires a third-party enrichment tool (see below)

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How to export LinkedIn contacts with phone numbers

LinkedIn does not put phone numbers in the connections archive anymore. There is no setting that brings them back.

Two ways to get phone numbers for a list of LinkedIn contacts:

Manual, one by one. Open a connection's profile, click Contact info, and check whether they listed a number. A small share of profiles do. Slow, but free, and fine for a handful of priority accounts.
Bulk enrichment. Run your exported CSV through an enrichment tool that appends mobile numbers from public business data. We orchestrate this inside Clay, which appends phone numbers alongside verified work emails so a single pass cleans the whole list. Mobile match rates sit around 30 to 50% on B2B contacts in 2026, so do not expect a number for everyone.

If your plan is to cold call the list, match it to the channel order we use: cold email, LinkedIn, cold calling. The call comes last, after the prospect has already seen your name. A number with no prior touch converts far worse than a number attached to a warm thread.

How to export Sales Navigator leads (the missing button problem)

This is where most people get stuck. LinkedIn Sales Navigator, the paid prospecting tier (Core starts around $99.99/month in 2026), has no native "export to CSV" button for your leads or saved lists. LinkedIn removed easy export on purpose. The data is the product.

So how do teams export Sales Navigator leads in practice? Three routes:

CRM sync (built into some plans). Advanced and Enterprise tiers can sync lead and account data to a connected CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot). Once it is in the CRM, you export from there. This is the only LinkedIn-sanctioned path.
Third-party enrichment tools. Tools like Wiza, Evaboot, and Clay read a Sales Navigator saved search or lead list, pull the profiles, and return a clean CSV with verified emails appended. This is the route most outbound teams actually use. Wiza and Evaboot are purpose-built for the Sales Navigator export job; Clay does it as part of a broader enrichment workflow.
Manual rebuild. Re-run the search on the free LinkedIn side and export connections you have. Tedious and lossy. Only worth it for tiny lists.

The step nobody mentions: build the search well before you export anything. A messy Sales Navigator search produces a messy export. Get the Sales Navigator search filters right first (account filters before lead filters, timing signals layered on top), then export the tight list. Exporting 2,500 loosely-filtered leads gives you 2,500 problems. Exporting 200 well-filtered ones gives you a campaign.

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Operator insight. "The export is the easy part. The list quality is the whole game. We have run campaigns into niche segments, garment manufacturers, churches, brokers, where a tight 200-contact Sales Navigator export out-booked a 2,000-contact dump every time. Filter hard, export small, enrich clean." Thibault Garcia, Reachly.

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Moving LinkedIn contacts to another account

If you run more than one LinkedIn account and want to consolidate, the export file doubles as an import file.

Export the connections from the old account using the steps above and save the CSV. LinkedIn formats it with first name, last name, and email, which is exactly what the import flow expects. Add phone numbers or other fields manually if you need them. Then, on the destination account:

Open My Network, then Connections.
Find the Add contacts or contact import option.
Choose Upload a file and select your CSV.
Confirm the upload.

LinkedIn reads the file and sends connection requests or adds the contacts, so you skip manual re-entry. If you are consolidating because of a duplicate account, close the spare account afterward so your network stays in one place.

What to do after you export: turn a contact list into booked meetings

An exported CSV does nothing on its own. The value comes from what you do next.

1. Get it into your CRM. Import the list so every contact becomes a trackable record. This is where account mapping, demographic analysis, and pipeline reporting start.

2. Fill the gaps. The LinkedIn export leaves blanks: missing emails, no phone numbers, stale job titles. Run the list through an email finder to fill them. We use a waterfall (Icypeas primary, LeadMagic secondary, BetterContact third pass), then verify with ZeroBounce to keep bounce rate under 3%. The full method is in our guide on how to find emails from LinkedIn.

3. Filter on a signal before you reach out. A clean list is not the same as a list worth emailing. Before launching, cut to the contacts showing a reason to care right now: a job change in the last 90 days, recent funding, headcount growth, a public post about a relevant pain. This is the core of signal-based outbound, and it is why Primal hit 4.57x ROI and cut customer acquisition cost 35% on lists that were small but sharp.

4. Reach out across channels, not just one. A single LinkedIn message or a single cold email underperforms. Combined sequences (a LinkedIn touch, an email, a follow-up, a call) hit 25 to 47% reply rates on the campaigns we run, including a Thailand pilot that landed at 47% LinkedIn reply when paired with email. If you are re-engaging old first-degree connections, a short LinkedIn connection or re-intro message restarts the thread before any pitch.

5. Keep the export as your backup. Even if you never email a single name, the file is insurance. If your account is ever locked, your network survives in a spreadsheet. Refresh it quarterly.

Across 400+ campaigns, the pattern holds: the export is step zero. The booked meeting comes from the signal, the verified data, and the sequence. The Great Room closed a $250K contract on exactly that playbook, with zero added headcount.

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Your exported list is step zero. We run the other ten.

Reachly is a triple-certified outreach agency (Clay, Smartlead, HeyReach) running done-for-you cold email, LinkedIn, and cold calling for B2B teams across APAC, USA, Canada, UK, and ANZ. We enrich the export, build the signal-based list, and run the sequence. Primal hit 4.57x ROI in 6 months. The Great Room closed a $250K contract on the same playbook.

See how Reachly works

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FAQ

How do I export my LinkedIn contacts to a CSV?

Go to Settings and Privacy, then Data privacy, then Get a copy of your data. Select Want something in particular, tick Connections, and request the archive. LinkedIn emails a download link, usually within ten minutes. The file is a CSV with names, companies, titles, connect dates, and any emails your connections chose to share.

Can I export leads from LinkedIn Sales Navigator?

Sales Navigator has no native CSV export. Use a CRM sync on Advanced or Enterprise plans, or a third-party tool like Wiza, Evaboot, or Clay that reads a saved search and returns a clean CSV with verified emails appended. Build a tight search first, since the export is only as good as the filters behind it.

Why are emails missing from my LinkedIn export?

Each connection controls whether their email is visible to connections. If they opted out, the field is blank in your export. Expect 60 to 80% of emails to be present, not all of them. Fill the gaps by running the list through an email finder and verifying the results before any send.

Can I export phone numbers from LinkedIn?

Not through the data export. LinkedIn removed phone numbers from the connections archive. You can check a contact's Contact info section manually, or append mobile numbers in bulk with an enrichment tool. B2B mobile match rates run around 30 to 50% in 2026, so a full set is unrealistic.

Is it against LinkedIn's rules to export contacts?

Exporting your own first-degree connections through the official data download is fully sanctioned by LinkedIn. Scraping profiles you are not connected to, or using automation that violates LinkedIn's terms, is a different matter and can get an account restricted. Stick to the official export and compliant enrichment tools, and respect GDPR and CCPA when you use the data.

How often should I export my LinkedIn contacts?

Quarterly is the right rhythm for most people. It keeps your backup current without becoming a chore, and it captures the new connections you added since the last pull. If you are actively building your network or about to run a campaign, export right before you start so the list reflects your latest connections.

What is the best way to use my exported LinkedIn contacts?

Import the list to your CRM, fill missing emails with a verified waterfall, filter to contacts showing a live buying signal, then run a multichannel sequence across cold email, LinkedIn, and cold calling. Signal-based lists out-book bigger lists every time. Primal hit 4.57x ROI on small, sharp lists rather than large ones.

Thibault Garcia

Founder

I’ve spent the past 11 years working across sales and growth marketing, helping businesses build predictable pipeline. My focus is on lead automation, lead generation, LinkedIn optimisation, sales funnels, and practical growth systems. I’ve worked with 500+ businesses on improving their revenue operations, and I enjoy breaking down what consistently works in outbound, positioning, and building repeatable growth.

 
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How To Export LinkedIn Contacts? An Updated Guide For 2026