How to search your LinkedIn connections
Your connections list is the one thing on LinkedIn that's entirely yours. Most people have never sorted it, filtered it, or noticed they can download the whole thing.
By Jerry Feng, Growth at Happenstance. Updated August 28, 2026.
The short version
Click My Network, then Connections, for your first-degree list with a search by name box, sorts for recently added, first name and last name, and filters for company, school, industry and location. The view stops at 1,000 results, so export the whole list as a CSV from Settings, Data privacy, Get a copy of your data.
The list stops at a thousand, and your network doesn't
LinkedIn is direct about this in its own help pages. When you're viewing your connections, the results are limited to 100 pages or 1,000 results (LinkedIn Help). The same site allows a member up to 30,000 connections. So if you have been on LinkedIn for a decade and accepted most requests, the interface shows you a third of your own list at best, in an order you do not control.
That is why the connections view feels thin and the export does not. The view shows a window onto the list. The file is the whole list, with the date you connected as a column you can filter on rather than an order you scroll through.
The export is also the full record of what LinkedIn holds about your network. Seven columns per person: first name, last name, profile URL, email address, company, position, connected on. Those seven fields are the entire record. No history, no note about how you met, no signal about whether you've spoken since. That thinness is the reason searching this list never answers the question that sent you there.
Doing this with Happenstance
The export is the right instinct and a CSV is a poor place to end up. Happenstance takes the same connections and makes them answerable in a sentence. Connect the LinkedIn account, and any of the other seven sources you use, then ask “Which of my connections has started a company?” Where the CSV holds one current title, the profile behind each person holds the whole career, so the column the export can't give you is the one you get to search on. The people you email constantly and never connected with on LinkedIn are in there as well.
Happenstance is free. The free plan is the whole product, with usage limits on chat and web searches beyond your network. Pro raises the limits: unlimited web searches and results, higher chat limits, and CSV export. Everything else the LinkedIn account brings with it sits on Happenstance for LinkedIn, and the wider case for a network you search rather than maintain is on personal CRM.
The message you send once you've found them
Filtering a list of 3,000 down to four people is only worth doing if one of them hears from you. This is an advice ask rather than an introduction ask, and it works because the question is narrow enough to answer from memory.
Subject: One question about [the specific thing]
If the gap since you last spoke is measured in years rather than months, this is the wrong opener and reconnecting with an old colleague is the right one.
Don't say
Not sure if you remember me, but we connected a while back and I wanted to reach out and see if you had any time.
Say
We connected when you were at [company]. One question about [thing], and it is a short one.
What Happenstance can see
Email is read as headers only. Message content and attachments never reach our servers. Yes. Your connections are searchable only by you, the friends you accept, and the groups you join, and sharing is always mutual. Your public profile shows a constellation of named people you know by default, which you can turn off anytime. We never share, sell, or use your data to train AI models. Happenstance is SOC 2 certified and DTI Trust Level 2; the full list of what is stored and for how long is on the security page.
Frequently asked questions
How do I search my LinkedIn connections?
Click the My Network icon, then Connections under Manage my network. The list has a "Search by name" box for finding one person and filters for Current company, Past company, School, Industry, Locations and Keywords for finding a group. LinkedIn limits the view to 100 pages or 1,000 results, which is the first wall you hit.
How do I export my LinkedIn connections to a CSV?
Click Me, then Settings & Privacy, then Data privacy in the left pane, then Get a copy of your data under How LinkedIn uses your data. Choose the larger data archive, the one that includes connections, then select Request archive. LinkedIn emails you a download link, and the link stays live for 72 hours.
What's in the LinkedIn connections export?
One row per first-degree connection with seven columns: first name, last name, profile URL, email address, company, position, and the date you connected. It's a snapshot of current job titles, not work history, and the file opens with a few explanatory lines above the column headers that you should delete before sorting.
Why are most email addresses missing from the export?
LinkedIn only includes an address where that member has allowed connections to see or download it, and most have not. Treat the email column as a bonus rather than the reason to export. The profile URL column is the one that makes the file useful.
Can I export my second-degree connections?
No. LinkedIn states that you can't export a list of people who aren't first-degree connections. The export is your own list only, which is the right scope for this: it's the network you built rather than the network you can see.
Does exporting my connections notify anyone?
No. It's a request for a copy of your own data and nobody on your list is told. The download link goes to your primary email address on the account, so check which one that is if it doesn't arrive.
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