# LinkedIn Private Mode: how to browse profiles anonymously > LinkedIn Private Mode shows you as an Anonymous LinkedIn Member when you view profiles. How to turn it on, what free users lose and what Premium keeps. Source: https://linkedinlikes.com/blog/linkedin-private-mode ยท Updated: 2026-11-12 ## Key takeaways - Private Mode shows you as "Anonymous LinkedIn Member" on profiles you visit from the moment you switch it on. - Turn it on under Settings & Privacy, Visibility, Profile viewing options, on desktop or in the app. - Free accounts lose Who's Viewed Your Profile while Private or Semi-Private Mode is on; Premium keeps up to 90 days of viewer history. - Premium can't reveal anonymous viewers, and Private Mode doesn't hide likes, comments, posts or messages. - A browser Incognito window doesn't make you anonymous on LinkedIn if you're signed in. LinkedIn Private Mode makes you appear as an "Anonymous LinkedIn Member" when you look at other people's profiles, so you can research someone without your name, photo or headline showing up in their viewer list. You switch it on under Settings & Privacy, then Visibility, then Profile viewing options, on desktop or in the mobile app. By default LinkedIn tells people when you've looked at their profile. With Private Mode on, they see an anonymous visitor and nothing more, so you can look around quietly. ## What happens when you turn on LinkedIn Private Mode? ![Person in a suit and a transparent hooded raincoat walking through a blurred, colourful office meeting](https://linkedinlikes.com/img/content/blog/3422006702ca15a829fb.jpg) Anyone whose profile you open sees "Anonymous LinkedIn Member" where your name, photo and headline would be. Every visit after that stays anonymous until you change the setting back, so you can look people up without identifying yourself. What you give up depends on your account. Free members usually can't use Who's Viewed Your Profile while they browse privately, and Premium members keep that viewer history. Private Mode covers profile visits only: your likes, comments, messages and other activity still carry your name. ### What do people use anonymous browsing for? Nearly every reason comes down to research: - **Checking competitors:** see how a rival's team is organised, who its most important people are and how it hires, without that company knowing you looked. - **Screening candidates:** recruiters and hiring managers do early background checks on possible hires without alerting them, which could otherwise make things awkward at their current job. - **Sales prospecting:** a well-prepared salesperson reads a lead's background and career history before the first contact. - **Planning a career change:** if you're thinking about switching fields, you can study the profiles of people in roles or industries that interest you and see the path they took, and nobody notices. Private Mode separates gathering information from networking. You can do your homework without starting a conversation by accident. The catch, mostly for free accounts: once you go anonymous, LinkedIn hides your own "Who's viewed your profile" list from you as well. You trade a little information for the privacy. ## Do you need LinkedIn Premium for Private Mode? No. Free accounts can turn on Private Mode in Profile viewing options in exactly the same way as Premium accounts, and you don't pay anything to browse as an "Anonymous LinkedIn Member". The cost shows up on the incoming side. Free users typically lose Who's Viewed Your Profile while Private or Semi-Private Mode is on. Premium members can keep their Who's Viewed history, commonly for up to 90 days, even while they browse privately themselves. ## How do you turn on Private Mode on desktop? The setting changes **future** profile visits only. It doesn't work backwards, so named visits that already sit in someone's Who's Viewed list stay there. From the moment you switch until you switch back, new visits show as anonymous. 1. At the top of your LinkedIn homepage, click the **Me** icon, the one with your profile photo. 2. In the dropdown, choose **Settings & Privacy**. 3. In the menu on the left, click **Visibility**. 4. In the main panel, open **Profile viewing options**. The next screen lists three ways to appear to others. Pick **Private mode** if your research has to be fully anonymous. ## How do you turn on Private Mode in the LinkedIn app? It's just as fast on a phone, and the steps on iOS and Android are almost identical. 1. Press your profile photo in the top-left corner to open the side menu. 2. Select **Settings**. 3. Go to the **Visibility** tab. 4. Select **Profile viewing options**. 5. Choose **Private mode**. From then on you can open profiles without leaving your name behind. That suits a first look at competitors or candidates before you're ready to introduce yourself. ## Should you choose Private or Semi-Private Mode? Pick **Private Mode** when full anonymity matters, because profile owners see only "Anonymous LinkedIn Member". Pick **semi-private mode** when you want to hide your name but don't mind showing general details such as your job title, industry or location. For active networking, public mode usually works better: it shows your name, photo and headline and can prompt profile owners to connect with you. The right setting depends on what you need most, whether that's quiet research, partial disclosure or as much visibility as possible. | Setting | What the profile owner sees | When to use it | | --- | --- | --- | | Public (the default) | Your name, headline and photo | Active networking, when you want people to notice you | | Semi-private | General traits, such as "Product Manager in the SaaS Industry" or "Business Owner from London" | Warming up cold leads or checking whether a possible employer is active, without giving your name | | Private | "Anonymous LinkedIn Member" | Confidential work such as looking at competitors or screening candidates | ### When does Semi-Private Mode make sense? Semi-private sits in the middle. It keeps your identity hidden but shows a vague description that can make people curious, such as a "Product Manager in the SaaS Industry" or a "Business Owner from London". You get some privacy and still leave a trail. A hiring manager or potential client who sees that description may wonder who it was and open your profile, and that can turn into a real connection. ![Flowchart for choosing between public, semi-private and private profile viewing on LinkedIn](https://linkedinlikes.com/img/content/blog/63d5318ab15820040c17.jpg) The flowchart comes down to your goal. If you want quiet research, go private; if you're networking in the open, stay public; and if you want to spark interest without showing everything, semi-private fits. ## How does Private Mode affect your networking? ![Man at a laptop showing Anonymous LinkedIn Member, with a blurred Who's viewed your profile list behind him](https://linkedinlikes.com/img/content/blog/f874bdb33a2b7cf526e4.jpg) Private mode is a setting you switch on for a specific job, and it has a real cost: you stay discreet, but you see less. For most people on free LinkedIn, the biggest loss is one of the platform's most useful networking features. When you browse anonymously, LinkedIn applies a give-to-get rule. You aren't sharing who you are, so LinkedIn stops showing you who visited your profile. The recruiters, potential clients and industry peers who looked at you drop out of sight. ### What do you gain, and what do you lose? You gain cover for competitor research, sourcing candidates and market research. On a free account you lose the list of people who viewed your profile, and with it signals from recruiters, prospects and possible connections. Switch back to public mode when being seen and inbound networking matter more than confidential research. - **Competitor analysis:** look at a rival company's strongest people and team structure without raising any flags. - **Sourcing candidates:** as a recruiter, do your first-round homework on possible hires without alerting them. - **Market research:** look into new industries or roles without your current network picking up hints that you might leave. Once the confidential research is done, switch back to visible and restart your networking. Getting noticed again takes some effort, and it helps to [improve your LinkedIn profile](https://cvanywhere.com/blog/how-to-optimize-linkedin-profile) so the first impression is a good one. The hard part after a spell in private mode is coming back into view, because your posts have to work a little harder before the algorithm shows them widely. ### How do you get visible again after browsing privately? After you switch back to public mode, show the algorithm that people care about what you post. Reactions and comments soon after publishing, often discussed as the first hour for reach, can help a post travel further in the feed. LinkedInLikes can help here, with no promise about timing. Paste the link to your post, choose [likes](https://linkedinlikes.com/linkedin/like) or [comments](https://linkedinlikes.com/linkedin/comment), and members act by hand from their own LinkedIn accounts, writing comments in their own words. It's free, you start with 100 starter points, and we never ask for your LinkedIn password. ## How does Private Mode work with LinkedIn Premium? If the trade-off bothers you, [LinkedIn Premium plans](https://www.linkedin.com/premium/products) remove the main drawback that free users run into. You can research quietly and still get the full list of who is looking at your own profile, so you don't have to pick between privacy and knowing who's interested. ### What does Premium add? With Premium you browse profiles in Private Mode and keep access to Who's Viewed Your Profile, typically with up to 90 days of viewer history. Premium doesn't reveal people who viewed you anonymously. It keeps your inbound viewer data while your own outbound visits stay anonymous. That mix suits recruiters, sales professionals and active networkers who need to research people quietly without losing signals from candidates, leads or connections. - **Recruiters:** look for strong candidates without alerting them or their current manager. - **Sales professionals:** research the people who make the final call and map out a company's hierarchy before the first outreach. - **Active networkers:** work out who's who at a target company without announcing your plans. Premium shows who viewed your profile over the last **90 days**, even while you browse in private mode yourself, which matters a lot for active networking and lead generation. It's a standard feature of the main Premium plans, including Career, Business and Sales Navigator, so upgrading is a logical step if your work needs both quiet research and a view of inbound interest. ### Can LinkedIn Premium see anonymous profile viewers? No. Premium doesn't unmask viewers listed as "Anonymous LinkedIn Member". Going by LinkedIn Help on profile viewing options and Private Mode, no paid option reveals who looked at your profile while they were in private mode. What Premium changes is what **you** keep while **you** browse privately: your Who's Viewed Your Profile list (typically up to 90 days) stays available even with your Profile viewing options set to Private Mode. That's different from identifying people who viewed _you_ anonymously. Premium also doesn't give you "more anonymous views", since Private Mode works the same on free and paid accounts, and it doesn't turn name searches into a named list of who looked you up. ## Common questions about LinkedIn Private Mode ### Is LinkedIn Private Mode the same as browser Incognito? When people talk about LinkedIn "Incognito" or "ghost mode", they usually mean **Private Mode**, the Profile viewing options setting inside LinkedIn. Opening an Incognito or private window in your browser does **not** hide you from Who's Viewed Your Profile if you're still signed in to LinkedIn. If your Profile viewing options are set to show your name and headline, a signed-in visit still shows you, even from an Incognito window. To appear as an Anonymous LinkedIn Member, change Profile viewing options to Private Mode in LinkedIn's Settings & Privacy, under Visibility. ### Can someone tell that I viewed their profile in Private Mode? No. In full **private mode**, the person gets a notice that an "Anonymous LinkedIn Member" visited, and that's all. They have no way to dig further and trace the visit back to you. ### Is LinkedIn Private Mode really private? For profile views, yes: no supported method turns an Anonymous LinkedIn Member back into a named viewer. It covers only **future outbound** profile visits made after you turn it on, and it doesn't change views you already left under your name. It does **not** hide likes, comments, posts, messages or connection requests, and your feed activity stays visible to your connections. Those actions still appear under your name, following LinkedIn's normal visibility rules. ### Does Private Mode hide my own profile? No, and this trips up a lot of people. Private mode only makes your _outbound_ visits anonymous, meaning what others see when _you_ open _their_ profiles. Your own profile stays as visible in search, and to anyone who opens it, as your main profile privacy settings allow. It hides where you go and leaves your own page alone. ### Will I lose my profile view history on a free account? Yes. On a free account, switching on private or semi-private mode takes away your "Who's viewed your profile" list. For free users it works both ways: to see who's looking at you, you have to let others see you. Keeping that list while browsing privately is one of the things you get when you subscribe to [LinkedIn Premium](https://www.linkedin.com/premium/). ### How can I get more visibility after using Private Mode? Once you're public again, post on a regular schedule, leave thoughtful comments on other people's updates, and ask your real network for early reactions, so the algorithm has a reason to show your next post to more people. The section above on getting visible again explains how LinkedInLikes members can add the first likes and comments. ## Grow on LinkedIn - [LinkedIn growth course](https://linkedinlikes.com/linkedin-growth-course) - [How LinkedIn pods work](https://linkedinlikes.com/linkedin-engagement-pods) - [Swapping likes and comments on LinkedIn](https://linkedinlikes.com/linkedin-engagement-exchange) - [Connect for connect on LinkedIn](https://linkedinlikes.com/linkedin-connect-for-connect) - [Like for like on LinkedIn works when you give first and share early](https://linkedinlikes.com/how-to-do-like-for-like-on-linkedin) - [Free LinkedIn growth tools](https://linkedinlikes.com/linkedin-free-tools) ## More articles - [How to grow on LinkedIn in 2026](https://linkedinlikes.com/blog/how-to-grow-on-linkedin-in-2026) - [LinkedIn benchmarks for reactions and comments in 2026, and how to calculate yours](https://linkedinlikes.com/blog/linkedin-engagement-rate) - [How to request a connection on LinkedIn](https://linkedinlikes.com/blog/request-connection-on-linkedin) Next step: open Settings & Privacy, choose the viewing mode that fits your research today, and set a reminder to switch back to public when you're done. ## Frequently asked questions ### How do I turn on private mode on LinkedIn? On desktop, click **Me**, then **Settings & Privacy**, **Visibility** and **Profile viewing options**, and choose **Private mode**. In the app, press your profile photo, then Settings, Visibility, Profile viewing options and Private mode. ### Is LinkedIn private mode free? Yes. Free accounts can use Private Mode just like Premium accounts. The difference is that free users usually lose Who's Viewed Your Profile while it's on. ### Can I see who viewed my profile while I'm in private mode? On a free account, no. Premium members keep their Who's Viewed Your Profile list, commonly up to 90 days, even while browsing privately. Neither free nor Premium accounts can see who viewed them anonymously. ### What does semi-private mode show to other people? General traits instead of your name, such as your job title, industry or location. A profile owner might see a "Product Manager in the SaaS Industry" or a "Business Owner from London". ### Does private mode hide my likes and comments? No. Private Mode only hides your profile visits. Likes, comments, posts, messages and connection requests still appear under your name. ### Does private mode apply to profiles I already viewed? No. It only affects visits made after you switch it on. Named visits already shown in someone's Who's Viewed list stay as they were.