💬 LinkedIn Conversation Scraper

Pull every conversation from your LinkedIn inbox into structured JSON — messages, dates, participants, headlines, distance, pronouns, and more. No fragile API hacks. Just your own session cookie and a real Chromium tab under the hood.

---

✨ Why Choose Us?

• 🛡️ Reads LinkedIn's own messaging API — issues the same GraphQL calls the LinkedIn web app makes, through a real authenticated browser session. Immune to CSS-selector churn; queryIds are auto-refreshed live when LinkedIn rotates them.
• ⚡ Live streaming — every conversation is pushed to the dataset the moment it's parsed (crash mid-run? you still keep what was collected)
• 🌐 Smart proxy escalation — starts direct, then auto-falls back to residential when LinkedIn blocks the exit IP (datacenter IPs are blocked by LinkedIn, so they're skipped)
• 🧩 Built-in profile enrichment — headline, distance (1st/2nd/3rd), pronouns and picture come straight from the API response, no extra page visits, no slowdown
• 📅 Date filters — today_limit or date_limit to grab only what's recent
• 🎯 Stylish, modern input UI with emoji-rich field labels

---

🔑 Key Features

Feature	What it does
📥 Inbox sweep	Primary, All, Other, Archive, Spam
🔎 Filters	InMail, Starred, Unread only
💬 Per-thread depth	Configurable max messages per conversation
✨ Profile enrichment	Headline + distance + pronouns + picture, straight from the API
🌐 Tiered proxy fallback	Direct → Residential (auto, on block)
📅 Date filters	Today-only or older-than-cutoff
💾 Live saving	Actor.push_data per conversation — no data loss on crash

---

📥 Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
🔐 li_at	string	Yes	Your li_at cookie from www.linkedin.com (treat as a password)
📥 list_type	string	No	PRIMARY_INBOX (default), INBOX, SECONDARY_INBOX, ARCHIVE, SPAM
🔎 filter	string	No	"" (none), INMAIL, STARRED, UNREAD
💬 max_convs	integer	No	Max conversations to scrape (0 = unlimited)
📝 max_messages_per_conv	integer	No	Max messages per conversation (0 = unlimited, most-recent kept)
📅 today_limit	boolean	No	If true, only today's conversations
🗓️ date_limit	string	No	YYYY-MM-DD — skip conversations older than this date
⚡ concurrency	integer	No	Parallel thread-message fetches (default 5)
🔁 max_retries	integer	No	Retries per API request on 429/5xx (default 3)
🌐 proxyConfiguration	object	No	Defaults to direct; auto-escalates to residential if LinkedIn blocks

Example input

{
  "li_at": "AQEDAU...your_cookie...",
  "list_type": "PRIMARY_INBOX",
  "filter": "",
  "max_convs": 10,
  "max_messages_per_conv": 25,
  "today_limit": false,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": false }
}

---

📤 Output

Each dataset record is one conversation:

{
  "participants": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/ACoAADM...",
      "distance": "DISTANCE_1",
      "pronoun": "she/her",
      "picture": "https://media.licdn.com/.../profile.jpg",
      "firstname": "Raisul",
      "lastname": "Islam",
      "headline": "Founder @ Authentic Digital Marketing",
      "entityUrn": "ACoAADM..."
    }
  ],
  "status": "ACTIVE",
  "unread_count": 0,
  "last_read_at": null,
  "last_activity_at": "2026-05-03 15:15:00",
  "is_group_chat": false,
  "creator": "ACoAAEjB...",
  "created_at": "2026-05-03 15:15:00",
  "messages": [
    { "content": "test message", "date": "2026-05-03 15:15:00", "who": "me" }
  ],
  "total_messages": 1,
  "last_message_date": "2026-05-03 15:15:00",
  "last_message_content": "test message",
  "last_message_who": "me",
  "days_from_today": 11,
  "_conversation_id": "2-ZmExYTkx..."
}

Field reference

Field	Description
participants	Array of participant objects (name, URL, headline, distance, pronoun, picture, entityUrn)
status	Conversation status (ACTIVE)
unread_count	Number of unread messages
last_activity_at	Timestamp of the most recent message (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS)
is_group_chat	True if multi-person thread
creator	URN of whoever sent the first message we collected
created_at	Timestamp of the first collected message
messages	Array of { content, date, who } (oldest → newest)
total_messages	Number of messages collected
last_message_*	Convenience fields for the most recent message
days_from_today	Days since the last activity
_conversation_id	LinkedIn's thread URN

---

🚀 How to Use (Apify Console)

1. 🔓 Log in to Apify Console → Actors.
2. 🔍 Find LinkedIn Conversation Scraper and open it.
3. 🍪 Grab your li_at cookie:
   • Open linkedin.com in Chrome → press F12 → Application → Cookies → https://www.linkedin.com → copy the value of li_at.
4. 📝 Paste it into the 🔐 LinkedIn Session Cookie (li_at) field.
5. ⚙️ Configure inbox type, filter, limits, and proxy if needed.
6. ▶️ Click Start.
7. 📺 Watch the live log — each conversation is logged as it's saved.
8. 📂 Open the Dataset tab when the run finishes.
9. 📤 Export to JSON / CSV / XLSX / Excel.

💡 Tip: Start with max_convs = 5 to validate everything is working before launching a full sweep.

---

🤖 Use via API / MCP

Run the actor via REST

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/<ACTOR_ID>/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{
       "li_at": "AQEDAU...",
       "list_type": "PRIMARY_INBOX",
       "max_convs": 10,
       "max_messages_per_conv": 25,
       "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": false }
     }'

Wait for results synchronously

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/<ACTOR_ID>/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"li_at":"AQEDAU...","max_convs":3}'

---

🌐 Proxy Strategy

The scraper escalates only when LinkedIn pushes back:

Step	Tier	What happens
1️⃣	🟢 Direct	Try without any proxy first
2️⃣	🔴 Residential	If LinkedIn blocks the exit IP → residential proxy with up to 4 fresh-IP retries
🔧	Pinned	Set proxyConfiguration yourself to force a specific exit instead of auto-escalation

Datacenter proxies are intentionally skipped — LinkedIn blocks them outright.

Every escalation step is logged so you can see what's happening:

🌐 Connecting via DIRECT (no proxy) — attempt 1/1…
🛑 [DIRECT (no proxy)] Could not authenticate / blocked on this exit IP — escalating.
🌐 Connecting via RESIDENTIAL — attempt 1/4…
✅ Session authenticated (feed loaded).

---

💎 Best Use Cases

• 🧑‍💼 CRM hygiene — sync LinkedIn DMs into HubSpot / Salesforce
• 💼 Recruitment ops — track candidate replies across hundreds of outreach threads
• 📞 Sales enablement — surface stale conversations and follow-ups
• 🗂️ Personal archive — back up your own messaging history before LinkedIn deletes it
• 🔬 Research — analyze your own DM patterns for sentiment / topic / response time

---

💰 Pricing

This actor runs on pay-per-usage — you pay only the underlying Apify platform usage (compute units, proxies if used, dataset writes). No additional per-event charges from us.

Run-time guideline: because data comes from LinkedIn's messaging API (not page rendering) and threads are fetched in parallel, expect roughly 0.5–1 second per conversation at the default concurrency.

---

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Where do I find my li_at cookie?

Open linkedin.com, press F12, go to Application → Cookies → https://www.linkedin.com, and copy the Value of the li_at cookie. It looks like AQEDA.... Treat it like a password.

Will this work without a cookie?

No. LinkedIn's messaging endpoints all require an authenticated session. We use your cookie so the scraper sees the same inbox you do.

Why does it sometimes need a proxy?

If you run the actor often (or from a flagged IP), LinkedIn may redirect to a login wall. The actor detects this automatically and escalates to a residential proxy. Most users will never need a proxy.

Will LinkedIn ban my account?

Use sensible limits. Don't run dozens of large sweeps a day. Lower concurrency if you see warnings. Scraping your own inbox at human-realistic rates is the lowest-risk pattern.

Can I scrape group chats?

Yes. is_group_chat is reported straight from LinkedIn's API. For each thread the output participant is the first member who isn't you (the other side of the conversation); the rest of the thread's messages are still captured in full.

Can I scrape someone else's inbox?

No. The li_at cookie ties to whoever generated it. You can only scrape your own inbox.

How is this different from the LinkedIn API?

The official API doesn't expose messaging to third parties. This actor uses a real browser to render the page exactly as you'd see it, bypassing API restrictions while staying within your own account's permissions.

---

⚠️ Cautions / Legal

• 📚 You may only scrape data your account is authorized to see (your own inbox).
• 🔐 Never share your li_at cookie publicly — it grants full access to your LinkedIn account.
• 📜 You are responsible for compliance with LinkedIn's User Agreement, GDPR, CCPA, and any other applicable law in your jurisdiction.
• 🤝 Don't use this to spam, harass, or unsolicited-message anyone — automated outreach violates LinkedIn's rules.
• 🚦 Respect rate limits — protect your account by keeping concurrency modest and max_convs reasonable.

---

🛟 Support and Feedback

• 🐛 Found a bug? File an issue through the Actor's Issues tab.
• 💡 Have a feature request? We listen.
• 💬 Need help? Use Apify Console's Discussion tab.

---

Built with ❤️ on Apify • Documentation • Apify Console