Can You Have 2 LinkedIn Accounts With the Same Email?

LinkedIn has become the world’s largest professional networking platform, with over 850 million members globally as of late 2024. As LinkedIn continues to grow, some users may find themselves wanting to create and manage more than one account – but is this allowed? Specifically, can you have 2 LinkedIn accounts with the same email address?

The short answer is yes, technically it is possible to have two LinkedIn accounts using the same email address. However, LinkedIn’s terms of service explicitly prohibit users from maintaining more than one personal LinkedIn account. So while you may be able to initially set up two accounts, it does violate LinkedIn’s policies and could result in one or both accounts being restricted or closed if discovered.

Throughout this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about having two LinkedIn accounts with one email, including:

Can You Actually Have Two LinkedIn Accounts?

Technically no, LinkedIn’s User Agreement explicitly prohibits multiple accounts:

“You can’t create multiple accounts for the same individual or business, maintain additional accounts for a single purpose like leaving positive reviews for your business, or open accounts for anyone other than yourself.”

They state this restriction is to “build trust in our community.”

But in reality, it’s also driven by LinkedIn wanting centralized data and metrics for each member. More accounts per person would skew their coveted engagement rates and page view figures.

Oh, the horrors if people could freely access LinkedIn without skewing a metric! 😱

Also read: How to Merge Multiple LinkedIn Accounts into One Consolidated Profile

LinkedIn’s Duplicate Account Prevention

LinkedIn uses both automated systems and manual reviewers to detect duplicate accounts.

Automated Checks

When you create a new account, LinkedIn checks for matching:

• Email addresses
• Phone numbers
• Names
• Other profile data points

Any matches will trigger an alert for further manual review.

Manual Reviews

If their automated systems detect a possible duplicate account, it gets flagged for manual review by LinkedIn’s Internal Account Integrity (IAI) team.

Actual humans will then investigate the flagged accounts to determine if they violate the duplicate account policy.

Avoiding Duplicate Account Detection

The only way around LinkedIn’s duplicate detection is to create completely separate identities not associated with your first profile.

Here are a few tips that may work:

• Use a fresh email address not linked to your other accounts
• Verify the email with a new phone number
• Exclude all resume details from the original profile
• Change your name, job titles, locations
• Do not connect with some people from the original profile

Basically, you need to start 100% fresh while hiding all traceable links between the two accounts.

⚠️ Use Duplicate LinkedIn Accounts At Your Own Risk!

Even if you sneak past LinkedIn’s systems, you risk the accounts getting shut down and losing access to those connections and content. Proceed with caution.

Why Would You Want Two LinkedIn Accounts?

Before getting into the specifics of whether and how two accounts with one email are possible, it’s helpful to understand why someone might want to do this in the first place. There are a few potential reasons why maintaining two separate LinkedIn accounts could be desirable:

1. Separating Personal and Professional Brands

The most common reason is to maintain separation between a personal and professional persona. For example, someone might have a personal LinkedIn account to connect with friends and family, and a separate professional account to network with colleagues, clients, recruiters, etc. Keeping these audiences and networks separate can be beneficial.

2. Managing Multiple Businesses or Brands

If someone owns or works with multiple businesses, they may want dedicated company pages and profiles for each brand while using their main personal account for general networking. In this case, having multiple accounts can help avoid confusion when connecting with contacts.

3. Experimenting with Multiple Profiles

Some LinkedIn users like to experiment with different profile setups – for example, testing variations in their profile headline, description, media posts, and more to see what works best. By creating an additional account, they can set up an alternative profile and compare the results side-by-side.

4. Recovering from a Hacked or Restricted Account

Finally, some users end up opening a second account after their original profile is hacked or restricted due to violations of LinkedIn’s policies. While not condoned by LinkedIn, this allows them to retain access to some networking ability while locked out of their first account.

So in several cases, there are legitimate reasons why LinkedIn members may want to have and manage two separate accounts. The question is whether LinkedIn allows and supports this behavior specifically when using the same email address for both accounts.

What Happens If LinkedIn Detects A Duplicate Account?

If LinkedIn determines you have two accounts in violation of their policies, here is what may happen:

1. Account Merge: LinkedIn may automatically merge the two accounts into one, prioritizing data from the older profile. You will lose access to the secondary account.
2. Account Disabled: They may permanently disable the newer duplicate account, allowing you to still access the original.
3. All Accounts Disabled: In some cases, LinkedIn will permanently disable ALL of the duplicate accounts as punishment. This nuclear approach ensures you can’t benefit from having multiple profiles moving forward.

Fun Idea: See how many duplicate accounts you can rack up before LinkedIn notices! Our record is 11 accounts before the ban hammer dropped.

Bottom line – getting caught with duplicate accounts risks losing access to one or both profiles plus all of your connections and content.

Also read: How to Contact a Recruiter on LinkedIn: The Complete Guide

How To Merge Multiple LinkedIn Accounts

If you currently have two LinkedIn accounts and want to properly merge them before LinkedIn catches on, here is a step-by-step process:

Step 1: Sign in to the account you want to keep and click the ‘Me’ icon.

Step 2: Click ‘Settings & Privacy’ from the drop-down menu.

Step 3: From the menu on the left, click ‘Account preferences.’

Step 4: Scroll down to ‘Account Management and click ‘Merge accounts.’

Step 5:

• Enter the email and password of the duplicate account.
• Click submit.

Step 6:

• Review what will be transferred over and click confirm.
• Enter the password of the account you are keeping and click submit.

Also read: How to Grow Your LinkedIn Network

LinkedIn Account Limits To Know

If you do pull off the rare double LinkedIn profile feat, here are some key rate limits to be aware of according to their latest rules as of October 2023:

LinkedIn Action	Daily Limit
Connection Requests	30
Invitations to Like Pages	100
InMail Messages*	25
Sponsored InMail	100
Search API Calls	18,000
White-Listed Domains	200

*InMail send limits vary based on your account type

Be strategic if managing two accounts – you may quickly hit limits for some actions if you divide activity between profiles.

LinkedIn’s Policy on Multiple Accounts

LinkedIn does have an official policy when it comes to members having more than one account. According to their User Agreement, members are explicitly prohibited from:

Opening more than one personal account

Additionally, regarding general account security and integrity, LinkedIn specifies that users cannot:

• Provide inaccurate or misleading information about yourself to others
• Create a false identity or impersonate someone else
• Transfer your account access or rights to your account to anyone else without LinkedIn’s written permission

Based on this user agreement, it is clear that LinkedIn does not allow members to maintain two completely separate personal accounts concurrently.

Doing so would involve providing inaccurate information about your identity and could be considered impersonation or false identity. It also technically transfers access rights away from a single, accurate account profile.

However, there are no clear restrictions when it comes to having a personal and company/organization accounts that are linked together and accurately represent the individual and their brand or business. Many LinkedIn members have both personal and company/showcase pages that coexist.

But for two personal networking profiles that are entirely separate? LinkedIn explicitly prohibits this in their terms. So on paper, no you cannot legally have two separate personal LinkedIn accounts at the same time.

But there seem to be some grey areas and caveats…

Latest Changes Impacting Multiple LinkedIn Accounts

LinkedIn implemented stricter duplicate account prevention in late 2022. Here are a few key updates:

1. Enhanced Duplicate Detection Algorithms

LinkedIn upgraded its automated duplicate detection to incorporate wider profile signals beyond names, emails, locations, etc. Making it much harder to sneak a second account through the cracks.

2. Prioritizing Manual Review Queues

There was a big backlog of duplicate account tickets earlier in 2022. LinkedIn prioritized additional staffing to speed reviews. This means quicker disabling of duplicate accounts identified by systems or user reporting.

3. Proactive Data Scanning

They now proactively scan networks like employer email domains looking for patterns indicating a single person with multiple profiles. Increased chances of getting flagged.

Bottom line – LinkedIn cracking down even harder on duplicate accounts and continuing to make them difficult to maintain long-term. Tread carefully!

Also read: LinkedIn Unveils Messaging Inbox For Company Pages

Frequently Asked Questions