LinkedIn is one of the most common senders we see in a first inbox scan, and it's rarely one email type. It's job alerts, plus someone viewed your profile, plus a group digest, plus a company page update, plus an invitation reminder. People turn one of those off, keep getting mail, and conclude the settings don't work. The settings work. There are just more of them than you'd expect.
I'm Alec, founder of Gmail Unsubscribe. This page covers the LinkedIn side first, because that's the only thing that stops the mail at the source, then the Gmail side for the backlog.
The settings path, on desktop
LinkedIn keeps email controls under notifications, not under a separate email menu.
- Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
- Click Settings & Privacy.
- Click Notifications in the left pane.
- Click into a category to see the individual items inside it.
- Switch off the toggle next to anything you don't want emailed, or set a lower frequency on the ones you're keeping.
The frequency control is the one worth knowing about. If you don't want to lose a notification entirely but you're tired of it arriving five times a day, dropping it to a weekly digest is usually the setting people actually wanted.
The same thing in the mobile app
- Tap your profile photo.
- Tap Settings & Privacy.
- Tap Notifications.
- Tap a category, then switch off the items you don't want and set the frequency on the rest.
It's the same set of preferences as the web, so you only need to do this once on whichever device is handier.
The unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email
Every LinkedIn email carries an Unsubscribe link in the footer, and where it applies, clicking it turns off that specific email type. It's the fastest option when one particular notification is the thing driving you up the wall, because you don't have to work out which category it belongs to.
What it won't do is stop everything. It's scoped to the email you clicked it from. If you want the whole thing quiet, the Notifications settings are still the place.
Why LinkedIn keeps emailing after you changed the settings
Almost always because a different category is responsible. A few that catch people out:
- Job alerts are managed per saved alert, not as one global setting. If you created three saved searches over the years, all three are still running.
- Group activity digests come from each group you belong to.
- Company page updates follow the pages you follow, not your notification categories.
- Invitation and message reminders are triggered by other people's actions, so they arrive in bursts that feel random.
Work through the categories once, properly, rather than switching one thing off and waiting to see what happens. It takes about five minutes and it holds.
Keeping the account, losing the email
Turning off every notification category doesn't touch your profile, your connections, or your messages. You keep the account and read what you need on the site or in the app. Deleting the account to stop the email is a much bigger hammer than the job requires, and people regret it when they next need to job hunt.
Now the pile already in Gmail
Settings changes only affect what LinkedIn sends from here on. Years of digests are still sitting in your account taking up storage.
In Gmail, search from:linkedin.com. Read the first page before you do anything, because the same domain sends things you may want to keep: job application confirmations, InMail from a recruiter, security alerts about sign-ins. If it's all disposable, select the results, use Gmail's option to select every matching conversation, delete, and then empty Trash. Deleted mail sits in Trash for 30 days and keeps counting against your quota until you do. The careful version, including the select-all trap, is in how to delete multiple emails in Gmail at once.
To keep some and clear the rest, narrow the search first. from:linkedin.com older_than:1y or from:jobs-listings@linkedin.com will separate the digests from anything with a real record attached.
LinkedIn is usually not the only one
If LinkedIn is loud enough that you searched for this, it's worth knowing what else is in there. The average first scan with Gmail Unsubscribe finds about 15 subscription senders, and LinkedIn is normally somewhere in the middle of that list rather than at the top.
Our extension runs inside Gmail, finds those senders, and submits real unsubscribe requests through each sender's official mechanism: one-click (RFC 8058), then unsubscribe-by-email from your own address, then the unsubscribe link. It also archives or deletes the backlog each sender left behind.
One honest caveat, since it applies here. Roughly a third of unsubscribe attempts across our users hit senders with no working mechanism at all. Large platforms like LinkedIn are generally not in that third; their opt-outs work, which is why the settings route above is worth doing directly. The senders that ignore you are usually the small ones you've never heard of, and we tell you plainly which those are instead of pretending the request went through.
Free covers unlimited scanning, unlimited bulk delete and archive, and 5 unsubscribes a month. Pro is $35.88/year for unlimited unsubscribes.
See every list your inbox is on, not just the loud one. Scan free, unsubscribe from the senders you pick, and find out which ones have no working opt-out.
Add to Chrome, freeCommon questions
How do I stop LinkedIn from emailing me?
Me icon, Settings & Privacy, Notifications. Open each category and switch off what you don't want, or lower the frequency.
Is there one switch for all LinkedIn email?
No. Email is split across notification categories, each controlled separately. The footer unsubscribe link handles one email type at a time.
Why am I still getting LinkedIn emails?
A category you haven't touched yet. Job alerts and group digests are the usual culprits, and job alerts are managed per saved alert.
Can I stop the email without deleting my account?
Yes. Notification settings are separate from the account. Your profile and messages stay exactly as they are.
How do I clear the old LinkedIn emails from Gmail?
Search from:linkedin.com, check for application confirmations and security alerts you want to keep, then delete the rest and empty Trash.