How to Use the LinkedIn Profile Scraper

*Performance may slow down when email discovery is activated.

Before you start

• Awareness of LinkedIn’s safety limits:
  • Default is 200, but you can adjust this number based on your needs. You can safely extract up to 1,500 profiles per day in total.
  • For safety, spread actions across multiple launches during working hours.
  • This limit remains the same even if you enable email discovery.

Step 1: Choose which LinkedIn profiles to extract

You can provide your profiles in four 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 results).
4. HubSpot:
   Connect your HubSpot account and pull profiles directly from a contact list. 
   → Make sure each contact has a LinkedIn Profile URL. If not, use the LinkedIn Profile URL Finder Phantom first.

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→ If your Chrome or Firefox version is outdated, your session cookie may expire much more quickly, and you’ll need to reconnect often.

Using multiple LinkedIn accounts

This Phantom supports connecting and running with multiple LinkedIn accounts at the same time. This lets you:

• Safely extract more results per day (e.g., 3 accounts = 3,000 results).
• Scale without duplicating automations.
• Keep everything in a single result file.

→ See our full guide: Use Multiple LinkedIn or Sales Navigator Accounts to Extract more Leads in one Automation.

Step 3: 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

Tip for safe use
For LinkedIn Profile Scraper, you can safely extract up to 1,500 profiles per day, even when email discovery is enabled.

Step 4: Configure Phantom behavior

In the Behavior step of the setup, you can adjust how the Phantom processes and enriches your profiles:

1. Set how many profiles to process per launch:
   • Enter the number of profiles you want the Phantom to extract in the field “Profiles to update per launch.”
   • Default is 200, but you can adjust this number based on your needs. You can safely scrape up to 1,500 profiles per day in total.

   • For account safety, keep the number moderate and spread actions across multiple launches during working hours.

     If you’re also running email discovery, reduce this number since each profile requires extra page loads.

2. Enable company data enrichment (optional):
   • Check the box “Enrich your profiles with company data.”
   • This makes the Phantom visit each profile’s company page and extract extra details like company size and industry.
3. Push updates to HubSpot (optional):
   • If you’ve connected your HubSpot account, toggle “Push contact updates to HubSpot” to automatically sync enriched profile data to your HubSpot contacts.

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.

To keep your LinkedIn account safe:

• Schedule runs during weekday business hours to mimic normal usage patterns.
• Stay within safe limits: keep launches moderate and spaced throughout the day. If you enable email discovery, reduce the volume further.
• If you’re chaining Phantoms, space them so one finishes cleanly before the next starts. Learn more in our guide on chaining Phantoms.

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, open the Results tab in the Phantom console to see the data collected.
3. Download your results as a CSV or JSON file, or view them as a dynamic list on the LinkedIn Leads page.

→ 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.

Re-launching on the same list: does it start over?

No. The Phantom continues where it left off from the previous launch, so it won't start over from the beginning. As long as you're using the same input source, it picks up with the next profiles that haven't been processed yet.

For example, if you ran the first 200 of a 1,000-profile list, the next launch starts at profile 201.

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

• Browser not updated → outdated user agents cause cookies to expire quickly.
• Using the wrong input type/URL → this Phantom only accepts LinkedIn Profile URLs.
  → If you have Sales Navigator Profile URLs, use the Sales Navigator Profile Scraper instead.
• Expecting all profile data (full job history, endorsements, screenshots, etc.).
  → This Phantom only collects the past 2 jobs/experiences and does not scrape endorsements or screenshots.
  → To extract full profile data, use the LinkedIn Profile Visitor instead.
• Missing company information (e.g., company website).
  → You must enable the option to enrich profile with company data in the setup for this information to appear.
• Expecting profile views to show in LinkedIn: This Phantom does not "visit" the profile, it extracts data using API calls. That means profiles will not show as "viewed" inside LinkedIn. 
  → If you want LinkedIn to register profile views while also collecting profile data, use the LinkedIn Profile Visitor Phantom instead.

If you run into errors or account 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

After extracting LinkedIn profiles, you can:

• Enrich further with the AI LinkedIn Profile Enricher → Analyze profile data to get insights and segmentation help (e.g., group leads by role, industry, or location before outreach).
• Warm up your leads with engagement Phantoms → Automatically like or comment on their posts with LinkedIn Auto Liker or LinkedIn Auto Commenter to increase visibility and build familiarity.
• Connect and follow up with LinkedIn Outreach → Send personalized invitations and follow-up messages to turn collected profiles into real connections.