The complete guide to LinkedIn settings you are probably ignoring

Most LinkedIn users never open their settings. They create a profile, add a photo, write a headline, and assume they are done. But the settings panel is where the real power sits. It controls who sees your profile, how recruiters find you, what data LinkedIn shares with advertisers, and whether your boss gets a notification every time you update your headline.

I have helped over 500 professionals optimise their LinkedIn presence, and I can tell you this with confidence: almost none of them had their settings right before we started working together. Some had their connections visible to competitors. Others had no idea LinkedIn was using their data for AI training. A few were job hunting while their current employer received alerts about every profile change.

This article walks you through every section of LinkedIn settings, one by one. No fluff. Just what each setting does and what I recommend.

Where to find your settings

Click your profile photo in the top right corner of the LinkedIn homepage and select "Settings and privacy" from the dropdown.

On mobile, tap your profile photo and then tap "Settings" at the bottom of the screen.

The settings page is organised into six main sections. Let me walk you through each one.

1. Account preferences

This is where you manage the basics of your LinkedIn experience.

Name, location, and industry. Make sure your name appears exactly as you want it seen professionally. Your location and industry affect how you show up in search results. If you have relocated or shifted industries, update these immediately.

Language. You can set your preferred language for the LinkedIn interface. This does not change the language of your profile content, only the menus and navigation.

Autoplay videos. You can turn off video autoplay here. If you find your feed distracting or if you browse LinkedIn in meetings, turning this off is a smart move.

Feed preferences. You can choose what types of content appear in your feed. If you are tired of seeing engagement bait and irrelevant posts, adjusting this can help.

Syncing contacts. LinkedIn can scan your phone and email contacts to suggest connections. I recommend turning this off. LinkedIn settled a lawsuit in 2015 over bombarding users' contacts with connection invitations. If syncing is on, go to Settings, then Account preferences, then Sync contacts, and select "Remove all."

Partner and third-party services. If you connected your LinkedIn to Microsoft, Twitter, or other platforms, review these connections here. When LinkedIn is linked to Microsoft, your profile information and connections may be used for targeted advertising across Microsoft products.

2. Sign in and security

This section protects your account from unauthorised access.

Email addresses. Add a backup email. If you ever get locked out of your primary email, this backup is your lifeline. I have seen professionals lose access to accounts with thousands of connections because they had only one email on file.

Phone numbers. Adding a phone number provides an additional recovery option and is required for certain verification features.

Change password. Use a strong, unique password that you do not use anywhere else. This should go without saying, but I still encounter professionals using the same password across multiple platforms.

Two-step verification. This is the single most important security setting on your account. When enabled, LinkedIn sends a code to your phone or authenticator app every time you sign in from a new device. Turn this on today. You have two options: an authenticator app or SMS. The authenticator app is more secure.

Where you are signed in. Review this regularly. If you see sessions from devices or locations you do not recognise, end those sessions immediately and change your password.

Passkeys. LinkedIn now supports passkeys as a modern alternative to passwords. If your device supports them, they offer both convenience and strong security.

3. Visibility

This is the section most professionals neglect, and it is arguably the most important one.

Profile viewing options. You have three choices for how you appear when you view someone else's profile:

Your name and headline (fully visible). This is the default and what I recommend for most professionals. When you view a recruiter's profile or a potential client's profile, you want them to see who you are. It starts a conversation without you having to send a message.

Private profile characteristics. This shows limited information, such as your industry or job title, but not your name. You appear as something like "Someone in pharmaceutical consulting."

Private mode. Fully anonymous. The other person sees only "LinkedIn member." This is useful for competitive research or for browsing profiles without being noticed. But there is a trade-off: when you enable private mode, you also lose the ability to see who has viewed your own profile.

My recommendation: keep your profile viewing set to your full name and headline. The visibility is an asset, not a liability. Switch to private mode only when you need to do competitive research, and switch back afterwards.

Edit your public profile. This controls what the world sees when someone finds your LinkedIn profile through Google or another search engine. You can toggle individual sections on or off: photo, headline, summary, experience, education, and skills.

If you want to be discoverable, keep your headline and summary visible. If you want to limit public visibility entirely, toggle the master switch to off; your profile will not appear in search engine results. Keep in mind that changes may take weeks to appear in search engines due to caching.

Who can see your email address. Options include no one, first-degree connections, first and second-degree connections, or everyone on LinkedIn. I recommend setting this to first-degree connections only unless you actively want inbound emails from strangers.

Who can see your connections? By default, your first-degree connections can see your entire connection list. This means competitors, recruiters, and anyone connected to you can browse your network freely.

Go to Visibility, then Connections, and set this to "Only you." This is especially important if you work in recruitment, sales, or consulting, where your network is part of your competitive advantage.

Important: even when you hide your connections, mutual connections will still appear when another person views your profile.

Who can see your last name? You can abbreviate your last name to just an initial. This is rarely necessary for professionals but can be useful in specific privacy situations.

Profile discovery using phone number or email. LinkedIn can suggest you as a connection to people who have your phone number or email address. Options are everyone on LinkedIn, second-degree connections, or nobody. Adjust based on how discoverable you want to be.

Profile visibility off LinkedIn. This controls whether your profile appears in permitted services outside of LinkedIn, such as Microsoft Outlook integrations or Google.

Share profile updates with your network. When this is turned on, LinkedIn sends notifications to your connections every time you update your position, add education changes, or celebrate a work anniversary.

Notify connections when you are in the news. If LinkedIn detects your name in news articles, it can notify your connections. Turn this on or off based on your preference.

Mentions. You can control whether other LinkedIn members can mention you in their posts and articles. Keeping this on is generally fine unless you are receiving unwanted tags.

Active status. This shows a green dot next to your name when you are online. Some people find it useful for messaging, others find it intrusive. I usually recommend turning it off if you do not want people to know when you are browsing LinkedIn.

4. Data privacy

This section covers how LinkedIn handles your personal data and who can reach you.

How LinkedIn uses your data. LinkedIn collects a significant amount of data: your profile information, search history, browsing activity, and interactions with content. Under GDPR, you have the right to request a copy of all data LinkedIn holds about you. Go to Data privacy, then "Get a copy of your data." The download takes up to a day to compile but gives you a complete picture of your connections, messages, profile data, and more.

I recommend downloading your data once a quarter. It is useful insurance if you ever need to close your account or get locked out.

Manage your data and activity. Here you can clear your search history, manage your personal demographic information, and review your data.

Social, economic, and workplace research. LinkedIn uses your data for research by default. You can opt out by toggling this setting off.

AI data and generative AI. This is one of the newer and more controversial settings. LinkedIn may use your data to train AI models. Review this setting carefully and decide whether you are comfortable with your content being used for this purpose. If not, toggle it off.

Who can reach you. This section lets you control connection invitations and messages:

Connection invitations: You can limit who can send you connection requests. Options include everyone or only people who know your email address. If you are receiving too many random connection requests, restricting this can help.

Messages: you can control whether non-connections can send you messages through InMail and message requests.

Sponsored messages: LinkedIn allows advertisers to send you promotional InMail. You can turn this off while still receiving regular messages.

Job-seeking preferences. If you are open to new opportunities, you can signal this to recruiters without alerting your current employer. The "Open to work" feature lets you choose whether to show this to all LinkedIn members or only to recruiters. If you are employed and job hunting, set this to "Recruiters only."

Permitted services. Review the list of third-party services to which you have granted access to your LinkedIn data. Remove any that you no longer use or recognise.

5. Advertising data

LinkedIn generates billions in advertising revenue, and your data fuels that engine. This section lets you control how much of your information is used for ad targeting.

Ad preferences. You can toggle off several options here:

Profile data for personalising ads. This prevents LinkedIn from using your profile photo and information for ad personalisation.

Interest categories. This stops LinkedIn from using your profile interests and activity, including Bing searches, for ad targeting.

Data collected on LinkedIn. You can turn off the use of your connections, location, demographics, company data, and other profile information for ad delivery.

Third-party data. This covers data LinkedIn collects about you from sources outside the platform:

Audience insights for websites you visit. This stops LinkedIn from tracking your browsing activity across the web.

Ads outside of LinkedIn. This prevents personalised LinkedIn ads from following you to other websites.

Interactions with businesses. This prevents third-party companies from using the information you provided them with to target you on LinkedIn.

Ad-related actions. This keeps your interactions with ads from being shared with advertisers.

My recommendation: go through each toggle in this section and turn off everything you are not comfortable with. Most professionals have never reviewed these settings, and the defaults heavily favour LinkedIn's advertising business.

6. Notifications

The notifications section is often overlooked, but it directly affects your daily experience on LinkedIn.

On LinkedIn. You can control which notifications appear in your LinkedIn notification center. This includes likes on your posts, comments, connection requests, job recommendations, and more.

Email. LinkedIn can send you a staggering number of emails: weekly digests, job recommendations, profile view alerts, connection suggestions, group activity, event invitations, and more. Go through each category and decide which emails you actually want to receive.

I recommend keeping profile view notifications and direct message notifications on, and turning off most of the rest. Your inbox will thank you.

Push notifications. If you use the LinkedIn mobile app, these controls the alerts that appear on your phone. Be selective. LinkedIn's default is to notify you about almost everything, and constant pings are distracting.

Bonus: verification and creator tools

Profile verification. LinkedIn now offers free profile verification using a government ID or a workplace email. Verified profiles display a badge and tend to receive more inbound messages, better search visibility, and improved algorithmic reach. The process is straightforward: go to your profile, look for the verification option, and follow the steps. You can verify your identity, your workplace, or both. I recommend only using this through the company's email address.

Creator mode and newsletters. LinkedIn has integrated creator tools directly into all profiles. You no longer need to toggle a separate "Creator mode" switch. Features like newsletters, LinkedIn Live, audio events, and enhanced analytics are available to everyone. If you publish content regularly, explore these tools. Newsletters in particular are powerful because LinkedIn automatically notifies your connections and subscribers every time you publish a new edition.

Open profile. If you have LinkedIn Premium, you can enable Open profile, which allows anyone on LinkedIn to message you for free without using InMail credits. For consultants and business developers, this removes a barrier for potential clients reaching out.

The settings audit I recommend

Here is a simple checklist you can work through today:

Turn on two-step verification. This is non-negotiable.

Set profile viewing to your full name and headline.

Hide your connections list by setting visibility to "Only you."

Turn off "Share profile updates with your network" before making any profile edits.

Review your public profile settings and decide which search engines should see them.

Turn off contact syncing and remove synced contacts.

Review and adjust all advertising data settings.

Opt out of AI data training if you are not comfortable with it.

Download a copy of your data.

Verify your profile with your ID and workplace email.

This audit takes about fifteen minutes and can significantly improve both your privacy and your professional positioning on the platform.

Final thought

LinkedIn is a professional tool, and like any tool, it works best when properly configured. The default settings are designed to serve LinkedIn's business model, not your career. Taking control of your settings means controlling how you present yourself, who can find you, and how your data is used.

If you have never opened your LinkedIn settings, now is the time.

Do you want a professional review of your LinkedIn profile and settings? I help professionals across pharma, supply chain, and other industries optimise their LinkedIn presence for career growth and visibility. Reach out to schedule a consultation.

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