[ANSWERED] How To Temporarily Disable Linkedin

Are you on LinkedIn but are starting to feel like you need to take a break from it – or get away from it altogether? You might be wondering how to temporarily disable linkedin.

LinkedIn is a popolar social media site that’s distinct from the many others online.

It’s a great site for promoting yourself, keeping up to date with your favorite companies, and creating and maintaining valuable professional relationships.

But LinkedIn isn’t for everyone. You might join the site only to decide later that you need a break or that it’s not for you at all.

You have several options if you are considering distancing yourself from LinkedIn. Keep in mind that permanently deleting your LinkedIn account is different from simply taking a temporary break from the site.

Are you thinking about disabling your LinkedIn account or even deleting your profile permanently? Here are some things to consider and steps to take.

What does it mean to temporarily disable or delete a LinkedIn account?

Have you been asking yourself, How do I stop using LinkedIn? One method is to delete your account. However, be aware that deleting your LinkedIn account can be permanent and will result in losing all your data.

Consider this option carefully. You may deeply regret losing your account data, so you may want to avoid fully deleting your LinkedIn account.

One option to avoid losing your data but still remove yourself from LinkedIn for a time is to disable your account.

How to temporarily disable LinkedIn without deleting it

On LinkedIn, temporarily disabling your account is called hibernating. You can hibernate your LinkedIn account rather than closing it. While hibernated, your profile will be invisible to others. Here’s how to hibernate your account from LinkedIn app on your phone:

1. Open the app and log in to your LinkedIn account.
2. Tap your profile pic in the upper left corner of your screen.
3. Tap Settings, then Account preferences.
4. Scroll all the way to the bottom and tap Hibernate account.
5. Select the option that describes why you’re hibernating your account.
6. Enter your password and click Hibernate account.
7. You can reactivate your account 24 hours after you’ve hibernated it by logging back into your account.

How to deactivate only certain features of LinkedIn

Another option for keeping your LinkedIn but giving yourself some distance from it is to deactivate only certain features of the app, like notifications, while continuing to use LinkedIn’s core functionality. Below are a few features you can consider disabling.

Deactivating LinkedIn notifications without deactivating LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great service, but its relentless notifications can make it more distracting than productive.

The notifications can also make you feel like you need to check the site or open up the app so you aren’t missing out on anything.

You can turn off LinkedIn notifications on your phone while still being able to use all of LinkedIn’s other features. Here’s how to do this on the LinkedIn app on your phone:

1. Open the app and log in to your LinkedIn account.
2. Tap your profile pic in the upper left corner of your screen.
3. Tap Setting, then
4. Head to the How you get your notifications
5. From this menu, you can toggle the following:
   • Notification methods – On LinkedIn, Email, Push
   • Who can reach you – Who you’d like to get communications from

Deactivating LinkedIn data tracking features without deactivating LinkedIn

Have you ever been on LinkedIn and noticed an ad based on a search you’d done on Amazon, Google, or another site? It can be a bit unnerving to have sponsored ads pop up on LinkedIn that are tied to what you have been viewing and searching for.

Another method for stepping away from LinkedIn without permanently deactivating or deleting your account is limiting the ability of advertisers to track your activities that result in LinkedIn displaying those unnerving ads.

Here’s how to do this on the LinkedIn app on your phone:

1. Open the app and log into your LinkedIn account.
2. Tap your profile pic in the upper left corner of your screen.
3. Tap Settings, then Advertising data.
4. There are several categories of preferences that you can select from to set various advertising, data collection, and third-party data options.

Stop opening and posting to LinkedIn

By far the most straightforward way to take a break from LinkedIn is to stop posting new content and checking the app altogether. While this might seem like a simple solution in theory, it can be challenging in practice. Here’s why:

LinkedIn is intended to be a professional network, i.e. it’s for work. The catch is that LinkedIn is almost identical to Facebook. You can call it a “professional network,” but it’s fundamentally just Facebook for Work.

We can become hyper-focused to the point where we forget everything else going on around us and just concentrate on LinkedIn.

Even users who realize they have such an addiction can find it difficult to simply stop using LinkedIn for fear they may be missing out on its social aspects.

This is the nature of virtually all social media, including LinkedIn, and one of the reasons it becomes addictive.

Your initial intentions in using LinkedIn to network and make career-benefitting connections starts innocently enough, but before long you can find that using LinkedIn more and more has wired your brain to quickly open the app and begin scrolling and tapping when you feel bored, feel like you’re missing out on news, or just feel like you need a distraction.

How to uninstall the LinkedIn app without disabling your account

Another effective but not permanent option for getting away from LinkedIn is to uninstall or delete the app from your phone.

With this option, all your account data will remain intact, since this doesn’t delete your LinkedIn account itself. However, it will give you a chance to take a break from the app.

By deleting the app from your phone, you’ll stop receiving notifications that urge you to open the app, which is what you are looking to avoid.

You’ll also be less tempted to want to use the app if you can’t simply tap and open it but must instead go through the steps to re-install the app to your phone to use it.

With this option, you should be aware that the LinkedIn app can be difficult to delete from some phones. If you try to delete it from your phone and have difficulty, you may need to further investigate how to do this.

Fully deleting and deactivating your LinkedIn account

The most extreme option for getting away from LinkedIn is to fully delete your account.

This option is permanent: Once you do this and go past a 14-day window, you will never be able to use that account again, and all the data on that account will be gone forever (of course, you can always create a new account later).

If you’ve decided this option is best for you, here’s how to do it:

1. Open the app and log into your LinkedIn account.
2. Tap your profile pic in the upper left corner of your screen.
3. Tap Settings, then Account preferences.
4. Scroll all the way to the bottom and tap Close account.
5. Select the option that describes why you’re closing your account.
6. Enter your password and click Close account.
7. Note that you can reopen your account in most cases if it has been closed less than 14 days by logging back into your account, but some account data cannot be recovered.

I hope these tips help you take control of your LinkedIn experience.

If you have your own experiences or tips to share related to deactivating or putting your LinkedIn account on pause, we’d love to hear from you in the comments!

— Sean