How to Easily Export Your LinkedIn Contacts in 2024

Adding new Connections to your LinkedIn network can get seriously stressful. And you’d be right to worry about your LinkedIn contacts disappearing overnight. 

But what if I told you that you could download your LinkedIn Connections to keep them secure on an Excel spreadsheet and reach out to them on autopilot whenever you’re ready?

You can when you know how to export LinkedIn contacts. 

From populating your CRMs to keeping track of your connections, having a list of LinkedIn contacts on a file can really come in handy.

And trust me, it’s way easier than it sounds.

Why Should You Export LinkedIn Contacts

Now I know what you’re thinking, “Why do I need to export LinkedIn contacts when it’s already stored online?”. 

Believe it or not, keeping your Connections on just LinkedIn isn't always the best idea. Here are a few problems with it:

• Your LinkedIn account is at risk! No, seriously. 

Aside from sounding like a spam email, you could wake up one day to find your account corrupted, banned, or worse…

Exporting your LinkedIn contacts helps you keep a backup. It’s good to keep one handy, after all.

<You need to watch this video to avoid going to LinkedIn Jail [Secret Tips Inside]>

• We can all agree that making new Connections is always exciting. 

But the #1 way to miss out on exciting new opportunities is not having meaningful conversations with new Connections.

That’s why you need a proper outreach campaign. 

You can add them to a sheet or populate your CRM by downloading LinkedIn contact data. You’ll have an easier time analyzing and segmenting your Connections.

And when you’re ready, you can reach out to your favorite Connections with a proper outreach strategy.

• The professional world moves ridiculously fast. And you’ll be making new connections daily.

That’s why you need to keep track of old Connections. Trust me, speaking from 8+ years of experience, it can be a real headache sometimes.

Exporting your LinkedIn contacts helps you track high-value profiles and ensure their contact data is the same across your entire network.

No more going through neverending lists of contacts on Linkedin!

Can You Export LinkedIn Contacts?

Spoiler alert: YES, you can! 

And come on, it would’ve been a little silly to write this blog if you can’t export LinkedIn contacts.

But the process can be slightly confusing. You can’t exactly hit a big red button and call it a day. 

So, how do you export data from LinkedIn? How can you view it on an Excel spreadsheet? And what data do you get from your LinkedIn export?

The answer lies within your LinkedIn settings. 

How to Export LinkedIn Contacts to Excel/CSV?

Let me show you how to export LinkedIn contacts with this easy 3 step guide:

Step 1: Locate the Settings

• Click on the “Me” drop-down menu located on the top-right of your LinkedIn homepage.

• Select “Settings & Privacy”.

• Head to the “Data Privacy” section.

• Under the “How LinkedIn uses your data” tab, select “Get a copy of your data”.

Step 2: Choose The Data You Want Archived 

Once you complete the first step, you’ll see the “Export your data” section. Locate the “Want something in particular?” option.

Since you want to export LinkedIn contacts, click on “Connections” in the list of given data points.

Step 3: Wait For Your Download

Click on “Request archive”. You will see the following message:

After this, go make yourself a cup of tea and check your registered email address for an email from LinkedIn in 10 minutes. 

Or sit there refreshing your email inbox till you get the email. Hey, I don’t judge.

After you receive an email from LinkedIn, you can open it to view the message and find the attached link. This will take you back to the page you left earlier.

Once you’re on this page, select the “Download archive” button.

Now, all you have to do is locate where your ZIP file was saved on your device, open it, and extract the file named “Connections.csv” to your desired location. 

From here, you can open the CSV file as an Excel spreadsheet to view your LinkedIn contact data (or try these methods if you’re facing issues).

Does This Process Export Linkedin Contacts with Email and Phone?

Export LinkedIn contacts…check. Open the CSV file in Excel…check. Looks like you’re ready to start your next outreach campaign!

Wait, hold on now. Something doesn’t look right.

The section for your contacts’ email addresses is mostly (if not completely) blank!

This is actually a privacy setting you can find as “Allow connection to export emails”. 

This setting is toggled off by default for every LinkedIn profile. Which means, the Connection’s email address will be omitted in the CSV file when you download LinkedIn contacts. 

And no, you can’t export phone numbers from LinkedIn. Free or Premium. 

By the way, you’ve probably had enough of listening to me talk about CSV files and Excel spreadsheets. 

Lucky for you, there is a way to populate your CRMs with LinkedIn contact data WITHOUT using CSV files.

And for all the LinkedIn veterans who want contact data for leads from Sales Navigator, don’t worry, I have got you covered. 

How to Export Contacts from LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Sales Navigator is a platform you must be familiar with if you do lead generation on Linkedin.

However, let me share the bad news first. 

You cannot download account information and lead data from Sales Navigator as a CSV or XLS file. That is if you’re trying to export LinkedIn contacts from Sales Navigator’s lead lists directly. 

Enter Salesrobot. 

Salesrobot is a LinkedIn outreach tool that uses AI technology to help you write messages that sound human to your customers on auto-pilot.   

And we don’t use generic cookie-cutter templates. The messages we generate for your campaigns are extremely personalized that even include relevant GIFs and pictures.

But enough about us, how can we help you download LinkedIn contacts from Sales Navigator? 

Step 1 - Get the Sales Navigator Search URL

•  Log in to your Sales Navigator account and head to the Lead Search Page.

•  Configure the relevant criteria for your ICP. For example, function, location, company size, etc.

• Copy the Sales Nav search URL from the address bar. 

(FYI, you can save your Search on Sales Navigator too. So if you have somewhere to be, you can choose to come back for your search URL later).

Step 2 - Open Salesrobot

•  Head to your Salesrobot account.

• Locate the “Advanced” drop-down menu and click on “Prospect Pool”. 

•  Select “LinkedIn Searches” > “Add Prospects”.

• Click on “Add from Sales Nav Search”.

• Paste the Sales Navigator search URL in the box.

• After you click on “Save”, you can configure the settings for the data points you need and tag prospects. 

Psst…did I mention? Salesrobot fills the gaps in your contact data list with email and phone numbers automatically. 

Step 3 - Search for Your Prospects 

So, a day later, you’re eager to find out how you can view the prospect data fetched by Salesrobot. 

Believe it or not, you can view and even download the LinkedIn contact data as a CSV file in just 5 minutes:

• Click on the “Prospect Pool” tab.

• Select the funnel icon located next to “Tags”.

• Input the name you used for tagging prospects.

Step 4 - Download Your CSV File

• Click on “Prospect Actions”.

• Click on “Export as CSV” from the drop-down menu.

After the last step, a CSV file will be downloaded to your device. 

Congratulations! You managed to export your Sales Navigator lead list to Excel. All you have to do is leverage this for your outreach campaigns. 

But what if I told you that there is a way to make the outreach much easier?

Here’s how you can start an outreach campaign on Salesrobot with just the Sales Navigator search URL:

1. Log in to your Salesrobot account. 

2. Click on “Campaigns”.

3. Click on “Create Campaign in the top-right.

4. Select “I’m an advanced user” to configure your campaign from scratch. 

If you’re new to Salesrobot, you can also select “Create campaign with SalesGPT”, where you can talk to our AI-powered tool in simple English to create and launch a new campaign within minutes.

5. Assign a name to your outreach campaign.

6. In the “Add profiles” section, click on “Add from Sales nav Search”.

7. Paste the Sales Navigator search URL in the given box and hit “Save”.

8. Verify the URL details and click “Configure Settings”.

9. Configure your campaign details

10. Choose how you want to write your message sequences. 

“Quick Start” offers ready-made message sequences, “From Template” lets you reuse earlier templates, and “From Scratch” lets you create a sequence from square one. 

11. Click on “Start Campaign” to finalize your settings and launch your campaign.

Once Salesrobot has finished fetching the required data from the Sales Navigator search, your outreach campaign is ready to run on auto-pilot!

How to Export All the Members of My LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn Groups are the perfect place to socialize with people who share the same business goals. 

If you’re an active member of a LinkedIn Group, then trust me, the Connections you find there are going to be invaluable.  

Besides, you can always try talking to other members of the LinkedIn Group too. You don’t wanna miss out on talking to your next potential customer, do you? 

Unfortunately, you cannot export contact data for the members of any LinkedIn Group. That makes targeting prospects from LinkedIn Groups on a different platform a real challenge. 

But Salesrobot lets you pull prospects from Groups. 

And the process is similar to exporting LinkedIn contacts from a Sales Navigator search URL. Here’s how to do the same for your LinkedIn Group:

• Open the LinkedIn Group you want the contact data from. You can find a list of the groups you’re a part of from your LinkedIn homepage.

• Open the complete list of group members by clicking on “See all” on the top-right.

• Copy the URL from the address bar.

• Login to your Salesrobot account.

• Head to the “LinkedIn searches” tab in the Prospect Pool section.

• Click on “Add prospects”.

• Choose “Add all in a group”.

• Paste the search URL in the given box.

• Configure the necessary settings.

• Assign a tag for the prospects. 

• Click “Save”.

After that, all you have to do is head back to the “Prospect Pool” tab and search for your tag to find your imported prospect data. Keep in mind, the process takes 24 hours to fetch the required data.

Once the 24 hours pass, you’re ready to download your LinkedIn Group contacts as a CSV file!

But before you can open it in a new Excel spreadsheet, there’s something you should know…

3 Big Drawbacks of Exporting your Linkedin Contacts to Excel

I know we just got done celebrating, but there’s still some bad news to share.

Downloading LinkedIn contacts and Sales Navigator lists and storing them as CSV/Excel files is not the best solution. It’s not even sustainable!

Let me explain:

1. LinkedIn does not provide an option to enrich or segment your data. You’re forced to download all of the raw data.

 What does that mean for you? Suppose you’re a LinkedIn user with thousands of Connections, there’s no way for you to categorize your contacts when you export them.

Can you imagine how long you’d have to sit at your device trying to sort one prospect at a time?!

2. As we have learned before, you don’t get phone numbers when you download LinkedIn contacts. 

Don't forget that some email addresses aren't available either. And without this data, you probably can’t do any email outreach or cold calling.

3. Exporting LinkedIn contacts provides you with a list of Connections and their contact data. However, that is only true for your current network.

Picture this, you exported your LinkedIn contacts today. And by the next day, you added ten new Connections to your network. 

That means there are ten contacts not present in the CSV file you downloaded the day before.

As a result, you’d have to keep exporting your LinkedIn contacts every few weeks to keep an updated list of prospects. 

Downloading LinkedIn contact data on CSV files seems like a bad idea, doesn’t it? 

So, you need a way to add LinkedIn Connections to your CRM and reach out to them on autopilot..

Lucky for you, you’re already in the right place.

Salesrobot: The Best Way to Populate Your CRM (Without Excel/CSV!)

Salesrobot simplifies your LinkedIn outreach strategy by helping you reach more prospects with messages that actually sound human. 

And you need less than five minutes to set up your first campaign.

But that’s not all, we go the extra mile to keep your customers hooked using several communication outlets like comments on relevant LinkedIn posts, follow up messages, and so much more. 

For starters, we let you bring in prospects from a variety of places to ensure your outreach efforts are up and running ASAP.

You get to import prospects from Sales Navigator and LinkedIn searches, Groups, Events, and CSV imports. So if you already have a CSV file of your exported LinkedIn contacts, hop on to Salesrobot!

But if you want my recommendation, stick to pulling prospects from Sales Navigator or LinkedIn search URLs. You can target specific Connections instead of going for all of them.

Segmented targeting = Better conversion rates = Warm Leads = 💰💰💰

But I have already listed the drawbacks of using CSV files to expand your prospect pool. So, you need a better way to add contacts to your CRMs.

Salesrobot offers 2-way integrations for all CRMs and outreach tools like Salesforce, Hubspot, Pipedrive, etc. 

Why does that matter? Because you longer need to manually download LinkedIn contacts when you’re using our integrations!

Salesrobot Integrations to Export LinkedIn Contacts Faster

Let me show you how you can use Salesrobot’s integrations to export LinkedIn contacts and add them to your CRM. 

A quick heads up: you need a basic understanding of Zapier for this step. 

You just need to know how to create Zaps, and you’re good to go (or you can let our team at Salesrobot do the heavy lifting for you).

With that out of the way, here’s how you can configure Salesrobot integrations to add LinkedIn contacts to your CRM on auto-pilot:

1.  Log in to your Salesrobot account.

2. Click on “Settings” on the left-side menu.

3. Select “Integrations”.

4. Locate the Webhooks tab and click on “Configure”.

5. Select “Add webhook”.

6. Assign a name for this integration and input the webhook URL from Zapier.

Can’t find the URL? Here’s where you can find it:

7. Choose when Salesrobot sends contact data to your CRM. 

To export LinkedIn contacts, choose “When a contact accepts connection” to add everyone who accepts your Connection request or choose “When a contact replies” to add contacts based on specific responses. 

8. Click on “Create new” to save your integration. 

And there you go! Your LinkedIn contacts are getting added to your CRM automatically WITHOUT the use of CSV files. 

This will help you big time when your outreach campaigns start bringing in new prospects daily. 

But if you need a little more help creating your first Zap and learning how to add LinkedIn contacts based on their responses, here’s a quick video you can follow:

Can We Do More For You? You Bet We Can

That’s how Salesrobot helps you export LinkedIn contacts. But if you ask me, there’s still so much more you can do when you’re working with Salesrobot. 

Let's start with outreach. After all, what good is a prospect list if you don’t actively engage with them?

But reaching out to your prospects manually? Not the best idea. 

Can you imagine sitting in front of your desktop for hours trying to personalize every message? 

Don’t even get me started on the mental toll when you don’t achieve the response rates you hoped for!

Let me show you why Salesrobot is your best bet to avoid this scenario.

Salesrobot helps you set up an outreach campaign with high-converting messages that targets your ideal customer automatically. We even show you the likelihood of a reply. 

No more settling for robotic icebreakers! 

Salesrobot lets you configure follow-up sequences however you want. You can customize delays or even set special messages like birthdays for your prospects.

The best part? Our Smart Reply Detection feature stops the follow-up sequence when your prospect replies, letting you take control of the conversation and close the deal at the perfect moment!

But I get it, it can be a little overwhelming if you’re new here. But with our SalesGPT tool, your very first campaign with Salesrobot can be created in a flash.

That’s because with SalesGPT, you can create a full outreach campaign by just talking with our AI bot in plain English. 

By the way, remember those LinkedIn limits? Salesrobot also helps you bypass those limits safely. 

Creating the best LinkedIn outreach campaign has never been this easy. 

Warning: Our features and offerings may be quite addictive. 

But we complement that with an extensive customer support that aims to guide you through any problems in your outreach efforts with Salesrobot.

Stuck somewhere? Campaigns not working like they should? Want more control over your outreach strategy?

Don’t worry, there’s nothing our support team can’t handle.

Conclusion

So there you have it: you have learned how to export LinkedIn contacts.

Not only that, you also know how to view them on an Excel spreadsheet. With a closer view of your customer base, you can decide on how to target your niche better!

However, considering the major drawbacks that come with constantly downloading CSV files, you’d be better off with the alternative approach Salesrobot offers through our CRM integrations.

Salesrobot adds your LinkedIn contacts to your CRM lists so that you can focus on your outreach strategy instead.

Forget the days of downloading endless CSV files just to keep your prospect pool updated.  Salesrobot does it in an instant.

So if we’ve got your attention, you can visit our website here and see what we can help you achieve. 

Feel like you’d be more confident if you had a proper feel of the product? No worries. You can try our features risk-free with a 14-day free trial. No credit card or phone number needed — just your email, and you're good to go!

Until next time,

Good luck!