LinkedIn People Search Scraper

Search LinkedIn for people by name, job title, keyword, or any combination. Filter results by location, company, school, and connection degree. Returns structured profile data including name, headline, location, connection degree, profile URL, and profile picture.

What It Does

This actor calls LinkedIn's Voyager search API (the same API your browser uses) with your session cookie to return people search results. It supports pagination to retrieve up to 100 profiles per run.

Key capabilities:

• Search by any keyword: name, title, skills, company, industry
• Filter by connection degree (1st, 2nd, 3rd+)
• Append location, company, or school terms to refine results
• Returns profile URLs, headlines, locations, connection degree, and profile pictures
• Deduplicates results across pages

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Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
searchQuery	String	Yes	Keywords to search for. E.g. "software engineer", "John Smith", "product manager Google"
cookie	String	Yes	Your LinkedIn session cookie. See Cookie Setup below
location	String	No	Location to filter by. E.g. "San Francisco Bay Area", "United Kingdom"
currentCompany	String	No	Filter by current company name. E.g. "Google", "Microsoft"
pastCompany	String	No	Filter by past company name
school	String	No	Filter by school/university. E.g. "Stanford University", "MIT"
connectionDegree	Select	No	Filter by connection degree: Any / 1st degree / 2nd degree / 3rd+ degree
maxResults	Number	No	Maximum number of profiles to return (1–100, default: 25)
proxyConfiguration	Object	No	Apify proxy configuration (optional)

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Output

Each profile in the dataset contains:

Field	Type	Description
name	String	Full name of the person
headline	String	Professional headline / job title
location	String	Location shown on LinkedIn profile
connectionDegree	String	Connection degree to your account ("1st", "2nd", "3rd+")
profileUrl	String	Full LinkedIn profile URL
profilePicture	String	Profile picture URL (when available)
mutualConnections	String	Mutual connections text (e.g. "5 mutual connections")
scrapedAt	String	ISO 8601 UTC timestamp of when the record was scraped

Example Output

[
  {
    "name": "Alice Johnson",
    "headline": "Senior Software Engineer at Stripe",
    "location": "San Francisco Bay Area",
    "connectionDegree": "2nd",
    "profileUrl": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicejohnson/",
    "profilePicture": "https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/C4E03AQ.../200_200/photo.jpg",
    "mutualConnections": "12 mutual connections",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-06-08T12:00:00+00:00"
  },
  {
    "name": "Bob Williams",
    "headline": "Product Manager at Notion",
    "location": "New York City Metropolitan Area",
    "connectionDegree": "3rd+",
    "profileUrl": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobwilliams/",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-06-08T12:00:01+00:00"
  }
]

---

Cookie Setup

LinkedIn requires authentication for search. The actor uses your existing LinkedIn session cookie — your credentials are never sent anywhere except LinkedIn's own servers.

Method 1: Copy the li_at token (simplest)

1. Open linkedin.com and sign in
2. Open DevTools (F12 or Cmd+Option+I)
3. Go to Application → Cookies → https://www.linkedin.com
4. Find the cookie named li_at
5. Copy the Value column
6. Paste it into the cookie field

Method 2: Export full cookie JSON (more reliable)

1. Install the EditThisCookie browser extension
2. Visit linkedin.com while signed in
3. Click the extension icon → Export (copies a JSON array to clipboard)
4. Paste the full JSON array into the cookie field

The actor accepts either format automatically.

Important: Your cookie is a sensitive credential. Use isSecret: true in Apify UI (the field is already marked secret in this actor's schema). Never share your li_at token.

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Filter Combinations with Examples

Search by keyword + location

{
  "searchQuery": "data scientist",
  "cookie": "<your cookie>",
  "location": "London"
}

Find 1st-degree connections at a specific company

{
  "searchQuery": "product manager",
  "cookie": "<your cookie>",
  "currentCompany": "Airbnb",
  "connectionDegree": "F"
}

Find alumni from a school

{
  "searchQuery": "software engineer",
  "cookie": "<your cookie>",
  "school": "MIT"
}

Narrow 2nd-degree connections by location and company

{
  "searchQuery": "VP Engineering",
  "cookie": "<your cookie>",
  "location": "New York",
  "currentCompany": "Goldman Sachs",
  "connectionDegree": "S"
}

Search for a specific person

{
  "searchQuery": "John Smith product manager",
  "cookie": "<your cookie>",
  "maxResults": 10
}

---

Notes and Limitations

• Authentication required: LinkedIn search is only accessible to logged-in users. The actor requires a valid li_at session cookie.
• Results vary by account: LinkedIn personalises search results based on your network, location, and account type. Identical searches from different accounts may return different results.
• Connection degree filter: Filtering by connection degree (1st, 2nd, 3rd+) uses LinkedIn's native network filter and respects your actual network graph.
• Rate limiting: The actor paces requests with 2–5 second delays to avoid triggering LinkedIn's rate limits. For large result sets (100 profiles), expect runs of 3–5 minutes.
• Maximum results: LinkedIn's Voyager search API supports a maximum of 1,000 results per query (100 pages × 10 per page). This actor is capped at 100 for reliability.
• Cookie expiry: LinkedIn session cookies typically expire after 1 year, but LinkedIn may invalidate them sooner. If you get an auth error, refresh your cookie.
• Location / company filters: These terms are appended to the keyword search because LinkedIn's blended search API does not accept separate structured filter parameters for them (unlike the dedicated /people search endpoint which requires entity IDs). Results are highly accurate for well-known company names and locations.

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FAQs

Q: Does this store or share my LinkedIn cookie? A: No. Your cookie is used only to authenticate requests to LinkedIn's API during the run. It is stored in Apify's encrypted input store and is marked as a secret field (not shown in logs).

Q: Will LinkedIn detect or block this scraper? A: The actor uses LinkedIn's official Voyager API (the same endpoints your browser uses) and paces requests to avoid rate limits. However, very aggressive usage from a single account may trigger LinkedIn's abuse detection. Use reasonable maxResults values and don't run multiple concurrent instances on the same account.

Q: Can I scrape profiles without a cookie? A: No. LinkedIn's people search requires authentication. Without a valid session cookie, all search API calls return 401.

Q: Why is connectionDegree empty for some profiles? A: LinkedIn only shows connection degree for profiles that appear in your network graph. Profiles outside your network (e.g. some 3rd-degree connections) may not have a degree badge.

Q: Why do some profiles not have a profile picture? A: LinkedIn users can set their profile picture to be visible only to connections. The actor extracts the picture URL when it is returned by the search API; it does not attempt to access pictures restricted to connections.

Q: Can I search for people at a specific company? A: Yes — use the currentCompany filter for current employees or pastCompany for alumni. For best results, use the exact company name as it appears on LinkedIn.

Q: What is the difference between connection degree values? A: F = 1st degree (direct connections), S = 2nd degree (connections of connections), O = 3rd degree and beyond. Leave blank to search all degrees.

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Data Source

This actor uses LinkedIn's Voyager API — the private JSON API that powers LinkedIn's web application. It is the same data source your browser accesses when you perform a people search on linkedin.com.

Explore the rest of the LinkedIn suite

Need a different LinkedIn surface? Pair this actor with any of the others in the LinkedIn Suite — all published under the same publisher and built to share the same cookie format and output conventions.

Actor	What it scrapes
LinkedIn Comments Scraper	All comments + reply threads on a post
LinkedIn Company Employees Scraper	Employee list for any company (by URN)
LinkedIn Company Info Scraper	Company About page (size, HQ, industry, specialties)
LinkedIn Company Posts Scraper	Posts published from a company page
LinkedIn Events Scraper	Events by keyword/URL with full event detail
LinkedIn Hashtag Posts Scraper	Posts ranked under a #hashtag
LinkedIn Jobs Scraper	Job listings via the public jobs-guest API
LinkedIn Jobs Scraper Ultra	Same as jobs-scraper + full detail enrichment
LinkedIn Learning Courses Scraper	LinkedIn Learning course catalog by keyword
LinkedIn Post Reactions Scraper	Reactors on a post (name, headline, reaction type)
LinkedIn Post Scraper	Full post (text, media, engagement counts, author)
LinkedIn Post Search Scraper	Posts matching a keyword (with date/author/network filters)
LinkedIn Profile Posts Scraper	All posts/reposts/articles for one profile
LinkedIn Profile Scraper	Public profile fields (name, headline, positions, education, skills)
LinkedIn Profile Scraper Pro	Profile fields + extras (recommendations, organizations, languages)
LinkedIn Profile Scraper Pro Ultra	Pro + premium fields (contact info, followers list when allowed)
LinkedIn Profile Scraper Ultra	Profile + the full upstream dash-120 surface
LinkedIn Profile Search by Name	Search profiles by person name (great for matching CSVs of names)
LinkedIn Schools Alumni Scraper	Alumni list for any LinkedIn school page
LinkedIn Top Content Scraper	Trending / top-engagement posts by topic
LinkedIn User Activity Scraper	Reactions + comments + posts feed for one profile

All actors share the same cookie input format (plain li_at OR full cookies JSON array) and the same omit-empty output convention.