Trust and safety

No account, no password, and your network and inbox stay on your computer. Installing an extension is still a decision, so here is who builds it, what it asks for, and how LinkedIn has responded so far.

Who is behind this

Francis R., founder of Network Cleaner

I'm Francis R., a software engineer since 2011, based in Paris, France. I tried to clean my own LinkedIn network, gave up after 20 minutes, and built Network Cleaner instead. Since January 2026 I have shipped 50+ releases, the recent ones dated on the changelog.

I write the code, ship the releases and answer the support email. Network Cleaner is paid for by the people who use it: no investors, no ads, and no data to sell, because your network and inbox are stored on your computer, never uploaded.

Support goes to a person, not a ticket queue. Write to team@networkcleaner.com or connect with me on LinkedIn and I answer, usually fast.

The removal safety record

How LinkedIn responds to bulk removal is the thing people ask about most. Here is what we measure.

How it works. Removals go through a queue, one at a time, with smart delays between them, the way a person working through a list would. That pacing is why it takes about three days per thousand connections. The slowness is the feature, and it is the part of the design we protect most.

What the numbers say. More than 65,000 connections removed through the app between January 2026 and August 2026, when we last counted. A few removals don't go through first time, for ordinary reasons: a dropped internet connection, a LinkedIn session that had timed out. The queue picks those up again. In all of it, LinkedIn has never once rate-limited, blocked, or served a CAPTCHA to a removal.

What it doesn't prove. It measures how LinkedIn answered our requests, not how LinkedIn treats any individual account, and those are different questions. LinkedIn explains its moderation decisions to nobody, which is why our terms promise you a mechanism and never an outcome. Any tool promising you more than that is guessing.

Removing is the only action the app takes on your behalf. It never sends connection requests, endorsements or messages, and removal does not open the person's profile, so it leaves no profile view behind.

The two permissions Chrome asks for

Chrome shows you this list at install and explains none of it. There are two lines. Here is what each one is for.

Read and change your data on www.linkedin.com and www.networkcleaner.com
Two sites, and only these two. On LinkedIn, because that is where your connections and messages live: reading the list, showing you a conversation, and carrying out a removal all happen there. On our own site, so it can tell you already have the app installed and so a purchase connects back to it. Every other site you visit is off limits, and that cannot be widened later without asking you again.
Read your browsing history
Chrome shows this line for any extension that can see which page a tab is on. It covers two small things here: opening the app in its own tab, and noticing when you are looking at a LinkedIn profile so that person’s details can be filled in while you browse. Your history is never collected, never stored, and never sent anywhere. Pages outside LinkedIn are ignored.

Why the wording is so broad: Chrome asks for every permission once, at install, in its own vocabulary. "Read and change your data" is the same sentence whether an app reads one line or rewrites the whole page. This page is where we explain each one in ours.

Straight answers

Where does my data live?
On your computer, inside your browser. Your connections, tags, removal history and conversations are stored there, never uploaded. There is no server to hold a copy.
What leaves my computer?
Usage analytics, hosted in the EU, tied to your own LinkedIn ID and profile basics (that is how we recognise you without a signup), and your payment through Stripe. Never your connections, messages or conversations.
Do I need a LinkedIn password?
No. The app uses the session your browser already has. There is no account to create and no password to give us.
What if I uninstall?
Your LinkedIn account is untouched. Only what the app kept on your computer goes with it.

What is collected, where it goes and how long it is kept: privacy policy. What you agree to and what we promise: terms.

If Network Cleaner ever stops

Nothing of yours is locked in. Everything lives on your computer, and paid accounts can export the whole network to CSV whenever they like. If the app disappeared tomorrow, the installed copy keeps running, because there is no server for it to lose. The honest limit: Network Cleaner reads LinkedIn's own internal APIs, and LinkedIn changes them from time to time, so an unmaintained copy would gradually lose features rather than stop on a particular day.

If development ever stops, we will say so plainly on this site rather than go quiet. And since cleanup is a one-time purchase, nothing you paid for depends on a renewal.

Check for yourself

  • Reviews on the Chrome Web Store, rated 5 stars and written by named people with public profiles.
  • The changelog, which shows what shipped and when.
  • The free tier. Install it, import your connections, browse and filter the whole network, all free. You can confirm the app does what it says before money is involved.