Do LinkedIn Invitations Expire?

Building connections and expanding your professional network on LinkedIn always starts with an invitation. But before sending off invitations, you may want to know more about them. Do LinkedIn invitations expire? And how long do LinkedIn invitations last?

LinkedIn invitations expire after six months. Prior to the expiration of LinkedIn invitations, recipients receive two reminders about the invitation. If the recipient responds to the invitation, no further reminders will be sent. If the user does not respond, the LinkedIn invitation will remain pending for six months, after which it will permanently expire.

LinkedIn invitations are similar to friend requests on other platforms. When you want to add a new connection to your network on LinkedIn, you send an invitation.

Invitations can be accompanied by a personalised message. These messages enables you to introduce yourself, remind the recipient how you met or simply state why you’re sending the invitation.

If your invitation is accepted, the user is then one of your first-degree connections.

LinkedIn invitations are usually sent to colleagues, friends and people you know through your professional life.

LinkedIn invitations that have not been accepted or archived will expire six months after they are sent.

Two nudges in the form of emails are sent to recipients before invitations expire. These emails are sent to remind the recipient about your invitation in case they missed it or didn’t see your accompanying message.

Invitations will not be visible on the recipient’s LinkedIn profile after they have expired and further reminders will not be sent.

Once the invitation has expired, it is possible to send another invitation.

If you regret sending an invitation on LinkedIn and are simply waiting for the six months to pass so the invitation will expire, it would be wise to withdraw the invitation.

LinkedIn invitations can be withdrawn by the creator at any time. The recipient will not be informed about the withdrawal of the invitation.

There are a number of reasons that you may want to withdraw a LinkedIn invitation. These include:

- Significant time has passed after sending the invitation

- You sent the invitation in error or sent it to the wrong person

To withdraw a LinkedIn invitation, simply click ‘My Network’, then ‘See All’ in the invitations box. Then click on the ‘Sent’ tab. Here, you can withdraw invitations by clicking ‘Withdraw’ next to the recipient’s name.

After withdrawing the invitation, details of it will no longer appear in the recipient’s notifications or anywhere within their LinkedIn profile.

However, LinkedIn invites, along with any accompanying messages, are emailed to users when the invitations are distributed, unless the user has opted out of receiving emails from LinkedIn. So, even if you withdraw your LinkedIn invitation, the original email notification may still be in the user’s email inbox.

After you have withdrawn an invitation from a user, you will be unable to send further invitations to the user for three weeks.

LinkedIn users will not be notified that you have withdrawn the invitation.

However, if they have opted to receive email notifications from LinkedIn, the initial notification of your invitation may still be in their inbox. Of course, there is nothing you can do about this.

To send an invitation on LinkedIn, go to the profile of the user you want to connect with and click ‘Connect’. Then add a personalised message by clicking ‘Add a note’.

If you’re adding a message, make sure it is tailored to the person you are sending the invitation to. Don’t send generic, copied and pasted messages. These messages may come across as spammy and are more likely to result in your invitation being rejected.

When you’re ready to distribute your invitation, click ‘Send invitation’.

If you manage a group on LinkedIn, you may also send invitations to users to ask them to join your group.

To invite LinkedIn users to your group, go to your group’s homepage and click ‘Invite Members’. Then enter the name of the users you would like to invite and click ‘Invite’.

LinkedIn has certain limits for invitations to groups. These are based on factors including the number of connections you have on LinkedIn, the size of your group and the number of pending invitations you have.

LinkedIn invitations expire after six months and two reminders. After LinkedIn invitations have expired, there will not be an invitation pending on the recipient’s LinkedIn profile. However, email notifications, which may have been sent by LinkedIn when you sent the invitation, may be still in the recipient’s email inbox. If you want to cancel an invitation at any point, you can do this via the ‘My Network’ tab on your LinkedIn profile.