It's all nice to have all my data in the cloud, but I also like to back it up. In case I get locked out or who knows what happens.
For example, I have a reminder every month to back up my data from LinkedIn. Primarily the list of my connections though now that I am writing this I'll also check how could I backup all my other data from LinkedIn.
This backup is kept in a private git repository on GitHub as well.
Here is how I do it:
- Visit LinkedIn
- Click on "Me" (my avatar in the top right corner)
- Click on Settings & Privacy
- Click on Data Privacy
- Click on Get a copy of your data
- I am mostly interested in
Connections
so I check that box. You might want others as well. - Click on
Request Archive
It will take some time for LinkedIn to prepare the zip file, but they will send you an email with a link.
Once I receive that email I click on the link and download the zipfile which is called something like Basic_LinkedInDataExport_12-05-2022.zip
Handle the downloaded file
- cd to the workdir of the git repository where I keep my private data
-
unzip
the file:unzip ~/Downloads/Basic_LinkedInDataExport_12-05-2022.zip
- sort the content with
sort Connections.csv -o Connections.csv
- Remove the "empty" rows from the beginning. (For some reason there every time there are a few 10s of rows with only commas. I remove those.
- Move the line that starts with
First Name
to the beginning of the file. This is the header of the file that is moved away by the sort. - Commit the file to git and push it out.
Automate this?
I am sure I could automate the process, but I don't think it is worth my time to do so.