linkedin-api

What it is and what it does

linkedin-api is a Python wrapper around LinkedIn's internal Voyager API endpoints, allowing you to programmatically search profiles, retrieve contact information, manage connections, send and read messages, and interact with job postings and posts—all without needing LinkedIn's official developer API access. It works by authenticating with a valid LinkedIn user account and replicating the HTTP requests the LinkedIn website makes internally.

The library uses requests, beautifulsoup4, and lxml to handle HTTP communication and HTML parsing. It requires Python 3.10 or later. The project explicitly warns that it is not officially supported by LinkedIn and may violate LinkedIn's Terms of Service, so use carries legal and account-risk considerations. Maintenance is dormant as of the fact sheet date, meaning no active development or support is occurring.

Use it for:

• Bulk extract profile data and contact information for recruitment or sales prospecting workflows
• Automate connection requests and message sending for outreach campaigns
• Search and monitor job postings on LinkedIn programmatically for job aggregation or alerting
• Build internal tools to retrieve and analyze your own network and connection data
• Integrate LinkedIn profile lookups into third-party applications without official API approval

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

Provides direct HTTP access to LinkedIn's internal Voyager API for profile search, messaging, job discovery, and connection management without requiring official API credentials.

No—install only if you accept significant risk. The library is dormant (645 days since last release), explicitly violates LinkedIn's Terms of Service, and may trigger account challenges or bans. No active maintenance means compatibility breaks from LinkedIn's side will go unfixed. Use only for low-stakes personal automation or when official API access is genuinely unavailable and the account risk is acceptable.

Install

linkedin-api on PyPI

pip install linkedin-api

uv add linkedin-api

poetry add linkedin-api

Installing linkedin-api

Before you install

Low install friction with three common dependencies (requests, beautifulsoup4, lxml). Maintenance is dormant—last release was 645 days ago—so expect no active bug fixes or feature updates.

License in practice

MIT license permits commercial and private use with minimal restrictions, requiring only license and copyright notice retention.

Quickstart

pip install linkedin-api

from linkedin_api import Linkedin

api = Linkedin('user@example.com', 'password')
profile = api.get_profile('profile-slug')
connections = api.get_profile_connections('profile-id')

Requires Python >= 3.10. LinkedIn may challenge authentication with 2FA, rate-limiting, or IP-based verification; the library does not handle Challenge URLs and will fail in those cases.

Verify before relying

• Whether LinkedIn's Terms of Service enforcement against this library has changed since last release
• Current rate-limit thresholds and whether Challenge detection has been improved
• Compatibility with recent LinkedIn UI or authentication changes not yet reflected in the codebase

Package facts

Evidence: linkedin_api-2.3.1-py3-none-any.whl

Keywords: linkedin, api, automation, scraper, bot, data, sdk, ai, integration, profiles, network, company

Tags

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