It is quite common to have more than one LinkedIn account. Most of the time it happens by accident. Let’s say you have 2 different email account. You use one email account to register at LinkedIn and probably forgot about it.

Sometime later, a friend or co-worker sends you an invitation to connect on LinkedIn to your second email address. You accepted that invitation.

Over time, the same or different people could be sending you invitations and now you end up with two account and two profiles.

Do you need two LinkedIn accounts?

Most people do not need two separate accounts. However if you are in transition and do not want your present work connections to know what you are doing on the side, then it may be something you want to consider.

By having two accounts, you’ll dilute the power of connecting with people, which is the main reason to be on Linkedin in the first place. It will be more difficult to maintain two accounts as well as confusing people.

Up until recently, the only way to merge or combine both account is to export the email from the account you want to Delete and import it within the account you want to Keep.

The bad news was you have to re-invite everyone all over again if you use this method.

LinkedIn finally must have figure there are lots of people like this and finally created a way for you to merge your LinkedIn accounts.

You can’t do it within your LinkedIn accounts but you have to send a request to Linkedin with both email addresses and you need to tell them which one to keep.

I recently did that and happily all the connections are there.

How to merge LinkedIn accounts

Click on this link and it will take you to LinkedIn’s help page to merge your accounts

Click on the link above and read the details. Then click on the Merge Connections button to proceed.

You will need both email address to merge your accounts.

LinkedIn will send you an email within a few days informing you that the contacts have been merge. I receive the following email informing me the accounts have been merge within 4 days of sending the request.

Merge Linkedin Account Confirm

Some bad news about merging your LinkedIn accounts

LinkedIn is unable to transfer pending invitations or profile data like recommendations, work experience, or your group memberships. These will be lost.

In the email, they also suggest that you close the account that you don’t need. Otherwise, it may cause problems in accepting invitations. That makes sense since you will have two accounts with same email addresses there.

LinkedIn closed the second account for me so you don’t have to do it. Make sure you really want to close the account before asking them to merge and delete your account.

Make sure it doesn’t recur

To prevent this from happening again, it is best to add all the email addresses that you use professionally  or for business purpose, into one LinkedIn account. That way, should you receive invitations in the future, you do not accidentally create a new account again.

That’s all there is to merging two LinkedIn accounts.

Connect with me

If you want to connect with me on LinkedIn you can send me an invite. Do let me know what you are working on in your message because position and company doesn’t say much.

That would be like shoving your business card at someone without even having a bit of small talk. It doesn’t help you nor me.