How to Use the LinkedIn Auto Unfollow

Before you start

• This Phantom does not scan your “Following” list or discover targets automatically. It will only act on the profile URLs you provide.
• Awareness of LinkedIn’s safety limits:
  • You can unfollow up to 80 profiles/week with a Basic account.
  • With Sales Navigator, you can go up to 150/week.
  • If you enable email discovery, cut those numbers in half.

Step 1: Tell the Phantom which profiles to unfollow

You can provide your profiles in three ways:

1. My Lists:
   Choose a saved LinkedIn Leads list you’ve already created in PhantomBuster.
2. A URL:
   • Paste a single LinkedIn profile URL.
   • Provide a Google Sheet with LinkedIn profile URLs (make sure it’s shared with “Anyone with the link”).

   • Upload a CSV file with LinkedIn profile URLs (make sure it’s publicly accessible, and note that CSV upload is only available on paid plans).

     → If you’re using a spreadsheet, the Phantom defaults to the first column (A). To use a different column, enter the column’s header name in the field “Name of column containing profile URLs.”

3. My Phantoms:
   Use results from another Phantom as input (e.g. LinkedIn Search Export or LinkedIn Profile Scraper results).

Step 2: Connect your LinkedIn account

To let the Phantom act on your behalf:

1. Install the PhantomBuster browser extension and connect your LinkedIn session in one click.
2. If you’re not using Chrome or Firefox, you can retrieve your session cookie manually (see our cookie guide).

Check your browser user agent
Make sure your browser is up to date before connecting your account. 
→ If your Chrome or Firefox version is outdated, your session cookie may expire much more quickly, and you’ll need to reconnect often.

Step 3: Set how many profiles to unfollow per launch

Control how the Phantom runs to stay safe:

• Profiles per launch (default: 10, max: 10):
  → If you need to process more than 10, schedule multiple launches across the week instead of raising this number.

Advanced settings (dropdown in setup)

• Disable profile scraping (optional):
  • Makes the Phantom run faster.
  • Prevents email discovery from working.

Remember: the limits are 80/week (Basic) or 150/week (Sales Navigator). Cut this in half if you’re also using email discovery.

Step 4: Enrich your leads with professional emails (optional)

You can choose to add verified professional email addresses to each LinkedIn profile.

Not every profile will return an email address. The match rate depends on the data available, so the number of verified emails may be lower than your credits used.

1. Click on the “Select your email discovery service” dropdown.
2. Choose one of the following options:
   • PhantomBuster credits (default option)
     • Each plan includes monthly email discovery credits.
     • 1 credit = 1 attempt to find and verify an email for one profile.
     • Credits reset monthly.
   • Third-party services
     • Connect your own account by entering your API key for:
       • Dropcontact.io
       • Hunter.io
       • Snov.io

Enabling email discovery means the Phantom will spend more time on each profile, since it needs to process both the message and the email lookup. This increases execution time per launch.

Tip for safe use
When using email discovery, process about half of the default recommendation for your Phantom. This reduces the risk of hitting LinkedIn’s rate limits.

Step 5: Select launch frequency

Choose how often the Phantom should run:

1. Launch manually: Start the Phantom yourself whenever you need.
2. Launch once at a specific time: schedule a one-time run at a set date and time.
3. Launch repeatedly: schedule regular runs (e.g. once per day, several times during working hours).
4. Launch after another Phantom: chain automations together so this Phantom starts right after another finishes.
5. Advanced scheduling: customize the exact minutes, hours, days, or months when the Phantom should run.

→ For a complete walkthrough of scheduling options, see our guide to scheduling Phantoms automatically.

Step 6 (Optional): Advanced settings

Advanced settings are available if you want to fine-tune how your Phantom runs, but by default they’re already optimized for most use cases.

We recommend leaving them as they are unless a guide specifically instructs you to change something.

→ For a detailed overview of all advanced options (like execution limits, retries, email notifications, proxies, webhooks, and file management), see our Advanced settings guide.

Launch and results

When you’re ready:

1. Click Launch to start your Phantom.
2. Once it finishes, check the Results tab to see which profiles were unfollowed.
3. Download your results as a CSV or JSON file.

→ To learn how to export your data to Google Sheets, integrate with other tools, or reuse it in more automations, check our Access and Export your Phantom Results guide.

Export and input limits on the Free plan
If you’re on the Free plan or Free trial, some features are limited:
- CSV exports include only the first 10 rows of results.
- CSV download links (for dynamic viewing in Google Sheets or integrations) are not available.
- JSON exports are not available.
- CSV upload as an input method is not supported.
To unlock all features, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

What you give (Input) and What you get (Output)

This section gives you a detailed breakdown of everything you need to provide to run this Phantom, and everything you’ll receive once it completes.

What you give (Input)

What you get (Output)

Tips and troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• Expecting auto-discovery: The Phantom won’t check who you follow. It processes only the profile URLs you give it, in that batch, and nothing else.
• Using a private Google Sheet → make sure it’s shared with “Anyone with the link.”
• Browser not updated → outdated user agents cause cookies to expire quickly.
• Exceeding safe limits: more than 80/week (Basic) and 150/week (Sales Navigator).

If you run into issues

• Check how to troubleshoot your phantom using Logs.
• Browse the Fix Issues & Troubleshoot Errors section for solutions to common problems.
• Review our Automation Rate Limits by Platform guide.
• Check our Best Practices for Social Media Automation guide.

Suggested automations

Prep first - build your unfollow list (do this before running this Phantom):
This Phantom only processes the profile URLs you give it; it doesn’t fetch who you’re currently following.

1. Collect your current follows: Run LinkedIn Profile Follower Collector to export followers of your profile. The results include a true/false column showing whether you’re following them back.
2. Prepare your unfollow list: Filter rows where the value is true (you follow them) and copy those LinkedIn profile URLs into a spreadsheet.
3. Use as input: Paste that spreadsheet URL into LinkedIn Auto Unfollow to unfollow in bulk.

After cleanup - refill and re-engage:

• Find new people to follow: Run LinkedIn Search Export to discover prospects, then follow them with LinkedIn Auto Follow.
• Warm up your feed: LinkedIn Auto Liker or LinkedIn Auto Commenter on the new people you follow.