Check out some frequently asked questions regarding email syncing for Recruiter Admins.
Here's a tip
We are gradually introducing Email Connect, which may not be available to you at this time. This feature allows you to send emails using your existing email provider, directly from within LinkedIn Recruiter.
We only support Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace as providers for this integration.
After your IT admin has integrated your company email and calendar platform, you can navigate to Product Settings > Preferences > Company email and calendar provider, and then select a provider for your organization.
For Email Connect, your IT admin needs to add new permissions to enable sending emails through Recruiter. See Data and privacy for email and calendar integrations FAQ for the specific permissions.
Then, as a Recruiter admin, you need to select one of the following access levels to enable Email Connect:
- View only: Allows users to view email information within LinkedIn Recruiter without the capability to send emails.
- Send & view: Enables users to send emails directly from LinkedIn Recruiter and view these emails on the candidate’s profile.
- Off: Disables the email feature entirely and deauthorizes any previously authorized seats for email integration. (When you set the calendar to Off, it only disables the calendar without revoking any existing authorizations.)
Email Connect appears under Product settings > Company Settings > Email & calendar.
Important to know
You can disable the email and calendar integration entirely by selecting Do not integrate. Note that doing so will automatically revoke authorization for all users with existing email syncs. No new authorizations will be possible until email and calendar integration is re-enabled. For further details, refer to the Enable email and calendar integrations as an Admin in Recruiter guide.
If you decide to change the access level from Send & view to View only, it’s important for you to also request that your IT admin revoke the previously granted send permissions. Although this step is optional, not revoking send permissions means subsequent user authorizations will still include both read and send scopes. However, LinkedIn will respect your updated settings and limit functionality to the email view-only features, ensuring that the actual usage aligns with your specified access level.
When you change from a higher to a lower access level, this automatically triggers the deauthorization of all users. For instance, if the access level is adjusted from Send & view to View only, from View only to Off, or from Send & view directly Off, each of the changes will result in auto-deauthorization.
Note: When you set the calendar to Off, it only disables the calendar without revoking any existing authorizations.
Email syncing gives recruiters a more comprehensive view of their communication history with candidates, and cuts down on time switching between platforms. It is designed to elevate team collaboration by allowing your recruiters to share specific candidate conversations, which improves overall team visibility and transparency when making hiring decisions. This added context can increase hiring efficiency and result in more tailored outreach, which in turn improves the candidate experience. When you enable email syncing, Recruiter automatically fetches emails from up to one year prior to your authorization (or after February 6 2024 if originally authorized before Feb 5 2025). We’re gradually introducing retroactive email sync, and it may not be available at this time.
With Email Connect enabled, users have the ability to send emails directly from Recruiter to minimize context switching even further. This additional feature enables users to manage all communications within a single interface, Recruiter. Leveraging email as an additional communication channel also may enhance the response rate of outreach, leading to more effective candidate engagement.
All Recruiter users who use both email and InMail to communicate with candidates or conduct outreach.
No, after you have turned the feature on, all Recruiter users must individually authorize the integration in their email and calendar settings to turn on this integration. For more details, see Email syncing Recruiter user FAQ.
No, an admin must select a company email and calendar provider before users can individually authorize both the email and calendar integrations.
- Once the end user has authorized their email, the feature associated with the permission will be turned on for their seat. Users can deauthorize to revoke access from the application at any time.
- For viewing email conversations with candidates, emails sent or received with candidates added to your contract will be displayed under the message tab on their profile or when hovering over “messages” in a candidate’s row when looking at your talent pipeline or running a search.
- For initiating email conversations with candidates from within Recruiter (Email Connect), users can click the
Message icon associated with a candidate’s profile and select Email in the Compose message pane. The candidate’s profile must include an email address, but If an email address is not already listed, users can manually add it while composing the message. The email address will automatically be saved to the recipient’s profile in Recruiter, allowing messages to be sent via email.
While it may be possible to connect your personal email, we recommend using your company email, as your personal email may contain private conversations that you may not want to sync to Recruiter.
Your Google Workspace or Azure admin may need to follow the integration guide specific to your new provider (see Integration Guides below), and you, the Recruiter Admin, will need to select the new provider in your Company Settings. In addition, all individual users will need to re-authorize in their email and calendar settings.
No, once you complete the 2FA steps, we will save an OAuth token so you don’t have to go through it again.
Once an email is matched and stored, the visibility of the email in Recruiter is automatically set to Private to me. The owner of the email can determine whether they want to keep the email private or change its visibility to their organization.
Yes, after your Google Workspace admin has integrated Google Workspace, a Recruiter admin has selected Google Workspace as the company email and calendar provider, and individual users have authorized the integration, users will be able to use Google Meet as an option for scheduling screening interviews via InMail.
LinkedIn does not sync an email if any of the following conditions apply:
- More than two participants on the email thread: An email involving more than two participants (in to, cc, bcc) is not ingested.
- Recipient shares your authorized domain: An email exchanged within the same domain as your authorized email address is not ingested. For example, an email sent to or from @xyz.com if your authorized email is @xyz.com.
- Recipient is not in your recruitment pipeline: If the email involves a recipient who is not part of your active recruitment pipeline, and the email was not initiated through LinkedIn Recruiter, the email is not ingested.
- No matching LinkedIn profile for recipient: If the recipient's email address does not match any email associated with a LinkedIn profile, and the email was not initiated through LinkedIn Recruiter, the email is not ingested.
- Recipient's discovery setting restricts access: If the email recipient’s email discovery setting does not match the recruiter’s level of access, the email will not be ingested. For example, a recipient with the setting of "Anyone at LinkedIn" will be ingested, but if the "1st degree connection" setting is selected and the recipient and sender are not connected, the email will not be ingested.
- Emails older than one year or inactive threads: LinkedIn only syncs emails exchanged within one year prior to authorization (or after February 6 2024 if originally authorized before Feb 5 2025), and only imports those emails if there has been activity on the thread (i.e., emails sent or received) in the last six months. Synced emails may be removed from Recruiter after six months of inactivity on the thread. Please note that once a thread is removed from Recruiter due to inactivity and then reactivated by sending or receiving an email, it will only sync new emails on that thread going forward.
If an expected email is not syncing and does not seem to fit these conditions, contact LinkedIn Support.
Here's a tip
The candidate’s profile must include an email address, but if an email address is not already listed, users can manually add it while composing the message. The email address will automatically be saved to the recipient’s profile in Recruiter.
Important to know
For successful email syncing with Email Connect, initiate outreach directly from LinkedIn Recruiter when contacting recipients who are not in your recruitment pipeline or do not have a matching LinkedIn profile email. In general, emails will not be ingested if the candidates are not in a pipeline. However, if you start an email thread in LinkedIn Recruiter, any replies to that thread will be automatically ingested, even from non-pipeline or non-LinkedIn members. This ensures ongoing communications are captured and accessible within Recruiter.
Yes, LinkedIn now incorporates active sync deletion into the platform, ensuring that when you delete an email in your email client, it is automatically removed from LinkedIn Recruiter as well. This feature maintains data consistency and integrity across platforms and has been developed with extensive effort to ensure compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). As part of DMA compliance, when a contract becomes inactive (suspended), LinkedIn automatically deletes all third-party data, including data from Outlook or Google. This applies to both email and calendar features.
If a thread remains inactive (i.e., no emails sent or received) for six months, the associated emails may be automatically removed from Recruiter. Please note that once a thread is removed from Recruiter due to inactivity and then reactivated by sending or receiving an email, it will only sync new emails on that thread going forward. If you delete a synced email from your email inbox after deauthorizing, it will not be removed from your Recruiter messages until six months of inactivity have passed.
When you first enable email syncing, Recruiter will automatically fetch relevant one-on-one emails from up to one year prior to your authorization (or after February 6 2024 if originally authorized before Feb 5 2025) Inactive threads may be deleted from Recruiter after six months of inactivity (i.e. no emails have been sent or received), though they remain safe in your original inbox. Please note that once a thread is removed from Recruiter due to inactivity and then reactivated by sending or receiving an email, it will only sync new emails on that thread going forward.
All previously synced emails remain in LinkedIn Recruiter even after you deauthorize. However, no new or previously un-synced emails will be fetched until you reauthorize your inbox. If you reauthorize your inbox within six months, syncing resumes from where it left off; if more than six months have passed, a new historical sync will begin. Keep in mind that deauthorizing does not delete any previously synced emails from Recruiter or your original inbox, but any threads that remain inactive for six months may be removed from Recruiter to keep your view streamlined and up to date.
Initial or follow-up messages can be sent through this email integration if the candidate’s LinkedIn profile includes an email address. If an email address is not already listed, users can manually add it while composing the message. The email address will automatically be saved to the recipient’s profile in Recruiter.
When a seat is transferred or parked, all data will remain with the seat that owned the data. Any emails set to visible for the whole contract will continue to be accessible for all seats in the contract. Emails set to private visibility (the default visibility) will not appear either for the transferred seat nor the other seats in the contract.