If you’re in sales, recruiting, or just hustling for new leads, you probably know the pain: LinkedIn is full of the people you need to reach, but getting their emails and info out of the platform can be a nightmare. Manual copy-paste is slow, scraping is risky, and most “automation” tools are either unreliable, sketchy, or both.
This guide is for anyone who wants a no-nonsense way to get real contact info from LinkedIn profiles—without wasting hours or risking your account. We'll walk through the exact steps to export LinkedIn profiles using Contactout, a browser extension that claims to make this process much easier. I’ll flag what works, what’s just hype, and what to skip.
Why Export LinkedIn Profiles?
Before we get into the weeds, let’s spell out why you’d want to do this in the first place:
- Speed up lead generation: Stop copying data by hand.
- Get real emails (not just LinkedIn messages): LinkedIn InMail is hit or miss. Emailing directly is still the gold standard.
- Build prospect lists for outreach: Import into your CRM, email tool, or wherever you manage leads.
- Avoid violating LinkedIn’s terms: Manual is safe but tedious. Automation can get your account flagged—choose your risk tolerance.
Let’s cut to the chase: if you just want a clean spreadsheet of names, emails, companies, and roles, with minimal hassle, keep reading.
Step 1: Set Up Your Contactout Account
Contactout is a Chrome extension that sits on top of LinkedIn. It claims to find verified emails and phone numbers for LinkedIn profiles, which you can then export in bulk. Is it perfect? No. But it’s one of the less spammy tools out there, and—unlike a lot of sketchy scrapers—it hasn’t been outright banned (yet).
How to get started:
- Install the Chrome Extension:
- Go to the Contactout website and follow the link to install the Chrome extension.
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Yes, you need Chrome. If you’re on Firefox or Safari, you’re out of luck.
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Sign Up for an Account:
- You can use your work email for more search credits. Free plans are limited, but enough to test if it works for your needs.
- Paid plans unlock bulk exports and more searches. It’s not cheap, so start with free to see if it’s worth it for you.
Pro Tip: Don’t bother with anonymous browsing or VPNs when using Contactout; the tool needs to “see” your real LinkedIn session to work.
Step 2: Define Who You Want to Export
Before you start clicking madly, get clear on your target list. Sloppy targeting = wasted credits and messy lists.
Ask yourself: - What job titles, industries, or locations do you care about? - Are you after decision-makers, or just anyone at a company? - How many leads do you actually need right now?
How to build your search:
- Use LinkedIn’s native search (not Sales Navigator unless you pay for it).
- Apply filters: location, current company, industry, title.
- Save your search URL — you’ll use it in the next step.
What to ignore: Don’t bother exporting everyone from a company or industry. That’s lazy and will just bloat your list with junk leads.
Step 3: Use Contactout to Reveal Contact Info
Now for the “magic” (such as it is). Here’s where Contactout does its thing: overlaying a sidebar on LinkedIn profiles to pull emails and sometimes phone numbers.
For Single Profiles
- Go to any LinkedIn profile.
- Click the Contactout icon in your browser, or use the sidebar that pops up.
- If Contactout finds info, you’ll see it right there. If not, move on—no tool is 100% accurate.
Reality check: Expect a hit rate of 30–60% on valid emails, depending on your niche. Tech and marketing folks are easier; obscure industries, not so much.
For Bulk Lists
- On a LinkedIn search results page, you’ll see Contactout’s “Export” or “Reveal” button at the top.
- Select the profiles you want (you can usually do this by pages).
- Click to export. The tool starts scraping emails for each result.
- You’ll get a CSV or Excel file with names, titles, companies, and whatever emails Contactout could find.
Heads up: Free users are limited to a handful of exports per month. Bulk exporting is for paid plans. If you’re just dabbling, start small.
Step 4: Export and Clean Your Data
Contactout spits out a CSV or Excel file with the data it finds. Don’t just upload this straight to your CRM—there’s always some cleanup needed.
What to look for:
- Missing emails: Not every profile will have a result. Decide whether to keep or drop these.
- Duplicates: Happens more than you’d think.
- Role/company mismatches: LinkedIn profiles aren’t always up to date.
- Obvious junk: Sometimes, tools grab “@gmail.com” or “@yahoo.com” emails—these are often personal or outdated.
Quick cleaning steps:
- Open the file in Excel or Google Sheets.
- Filter out rows with missing or junk emails.
- Standardize column names if needed (Name, Email, Company, Title).
- Remove obvious duplicates.
Pro Tip: Don’t get hung up on perfection. If you spend more time cleaning than reaching out, you’re missing the point.
Step 5: Import Leads Into Your Workflow
Now that you’ve got your cleaned list, push it wherever you do outreach—email tool, CRM, or even just a simple spreadsheet for now.
Common next steps:
- Import into tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, or Apollo if you’re fancy.
- Use cold email tools (Mailshake, Lemlist, etc.) for campaigns.
- Or, if you’re old-school, just email leads manually.
Important: Don’t blast everyone with generic emails. Personalize your outreach, or your messages will end up in spam (or worse, ignored).
What Works, What Doesn’t, and What to Watch Out For
Here’s the part most “how-to” guides skip: what actually works, and what’s just wishful thinking.
What works: - Contactout is solid for finding work emails, especially in tech, SaaS, and recruiting. - Chrome extension is stable and doesn’t crash like some competitors. - Exporting a few dozen leads at a time won’t get you banned.
What doesn’t: - Hit rate drops a lot outside of major industries. - Paid plans can get pricey fast if you need serious volume. - Sometimes exports include outdated info or junk emails.
What to watch out for: - Don’t try to export thousands of profiles in one go—LinkedIn will notice, and Contactout might slow down or freeze. - Avoid tools that promise “unlimited” exports. They usually break, or worse, put your LinkedIn account at risk. - Don’t treat exported leads as “verified.” Always check before you send bulk mail.
Keeping It Simple: Don’t Overthink It
Exporting LinkedIn profiles with Contactout isn’t rocket science, but it’s also not a magic bullet. The old rules still apply: garbage in, garbage out. Pick a focused list, export a manageable number, clean your data, and personalize your outreach.
Start small. See what works. Adjust as you go. You’ll save yourself a lot of headaches—and probably get better results than the folks who try to automate everything from day one.