Who viewed your LinkedIn profile
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On LinkedIn, how you appear in someone else's "Who viewed your profile" list is decided by your own profile viewing setting, not by theirs. Browse publicly and your name appears; switching to private mode also removes your own access to the full list of people who viewed your profile.
How to change your LinkedIn profile viewing setting
- 1
Open your settings
Click your photo in the top navigation bar and choose Settings & Privacy. The same menu exists in the mobile app behind your profile picture.
- 2
Find profile viewing options
the control sits under Settings & Privacy → Visibility → Profile viewing options. If the menu has been reorganised, search the settings box for "profile viewing".
- 3
Pick how you appear
you can browse as your full name and headline, as anonymous profile characteristics such as job title and industry, or in fully private mode. Choose the one that matches what you are doing — public for networking, private for research.
- 4
Check what you gave up
Open your own viewer list. If it has collapsed to a teaser, you are in a mode that hides your identity — and therefore hides theirs from you. Switch back once the research is finished.
Your setting, not theirs, decides what they see
This is the thing most people get wrong. how you appear in someone else's "Who viewed your profile" list is decided by your own profile viewing setting, not by theirs. Nothing the other person does changes whether your name is attached to the visit.
The rule runs in reverse too. When a viewer appears as "Someone at a consulting firm" or "LinkedIn Member", they chose an anonymous mode, and a viewer who browsed anonymously stays anonymous permanently, on every plan, and no upgrade reveals the name. Anything advertising itself as a way around that is not reading real LinkedIn data.
The three ways you can appear
you can browse as your full name and headline, as anonymous profile characteristics such as job title and industry, or in fully private mode. In practice they map onto three quite different intentions, and the middle option is the one people underuse.
Each mode costs you something on your own side of the ledger. Full visibility keeps your complete viewer list. on a free account only the name-and-headline setting shows viewers at all; semi-private leaves you none. Full privacy leaves you nothing at all.
| Mode | What they see |
|---|---|
| Full profile | Your name, headline and photo |
| Private characteristics | A description such as job title and industry |
| Private mode | "LinkedIn Member" |
The trade-off nobody mentions until it is too late
switching to private mode also removes your own access to the full list of people who viewed your profile. LinkedIn treats views as a reciprocal ledger: contribute your identity and you may read it, hide and you are locked out.
on a free account, browsing privately switches off your own viewer list entirely; only Premium keeps it. Flipping into private mode for one piece of competitor research can therefore cost you a week of signal about who has been circling your profile.
Free versus Premium
free accounts see only the three most recent viewers from the last 90 days. Premium accounts see the full list of viewers for up to 365 days. That gap is most of why Premium gets sold to recruiters and sellers: the free list is enough to know something is happening, not enough to act on.
Before paying, be honest about whether you will use it. The list only earns its price if someone reads it weekly and follows up on the names.
Does the other person get notified?
the person whose profile you viewed sees your name and headline unless you browse in private or semi-private mode. Treat every public visit as slightly loud: it is a legitimate way onto someone's radar before a message, and awkward if you are checking an ex-colleague at midnight.
Used deliberately, that visibility is the point. Viewing a prospect, posting something useful, then messaging a few days later beats a cold pitch, because your name has already appeared twice.
- Researching competitors, salaries or a company you are interviewing at — browse privately.
- Warming up a prospect, a hiring manager or someone you plan to message — browse as yourself.
- Building an audience — browse as yourself and post consistently, so the profile visit lands on something worth reading.
Profile views only convert if there is something on the profile worth staying for, which is why an AI LinkedIn content creator that keeps a steady posting rhythm tends to move the number more than any privacy setting.
Frequently asked questions
- Can someone see that I viewed their LinkedIn profile?
- Yes, if you are browsing as yourself. how you appear in someone else's "Who viewed your profile" list is decided by your own profile viewing setting, not by theirs, so your own setting is what controls it.
- How do I view a LinkedIn profile anonymously?
- Change your profile viewing option before you visit. the control sits under Settings & Privacy → Visibility → Profile viewing options, and private mode shows you as an unnamed member.
- Why has my viewer list disappeared?
- You are almost certainly browsing anonymously. switching to private mode also removes your own access to the full list of people who viewed your profile. Switch back to your name and headline to restore it.
- Do I need Premium to see who viewed my profile?
- No, but you see less. free accounts see only the three most recent viewers from the last 90 days, whereas Premium accounts see the full list of viewers for up to 365 days.
- Does private mode hide me retroactively?
- on a free account, browsing privately switches off your own viewer list entirely; only Premium keeps it. Assume the switch affects your own history as well as future visits, not only what other people see.
- Can I find out who viewed me if they were anonymous?
- No. a viewer who browsed anonymously stays anonymous permanently, on every plan, and no upgrade reveals the name. Any service claiming to reveal those names is not reading real LinkedIn data.
- Does viewing someone's profile help me get noticed?
- It can. the person whose profile you viewed sees your name and headline unless you browse in private or semi-private mode, so a public visit is a light-touch way to appear before you send a message.
Related guides
Platform behaviour changes often. Everything on this page was checked on 2026-07-28; anything we had not re-checked is marked unverified rather than stated as fact. More LinkedIn guides.