A LinkedIn account collects six different kinds of clutter, in six different places, none of which LinkedIn will show you together. This is the full list and a sensible order to work through it.
Last updated 19 August 2026
The biggest pile for most people, and the easiest decision, because an invitation from years ago will not be accepted now. Found under My Network, Manage, Sent.
Start here. It is the only category where clearing everything older than a cutoff needs no thought at all.
The incoming pile grows on its own and has the same problem in reverse: it is a queue nobody ever empties. Accepting or ignoring in bulk gets it to zero quickly.
Every connection you accept is followed automatically, which is why a feed becomes unreadable without anyone choosing that. Unfollowing does not touch the connection and is invisible to the other person.
This is the single highest-impact change for a noisy feed, and it costs you nothing in reach or relationships.
A separate list from people, and usually longer than expected, because applying for a job can add a follow automatically. Found under My Network, Manage my network, Companies.
Groups you joined and forgot generate notifications and feed posts. Requests you sent that no admin ever approved sit there indefinitely. Both are on the Groups page.
Leave this until last, because it is the only one that is not easily reversible and the only one that reduces your reach. Removing a connection removes the mutual follow too.
Sort by connection date, work from the oldest, export a copy first, and set a protect list before acting in bulk.
Every step above is manual clicking with no bulk control anywhere in LinkedIn. Unpend covers all six: a popup that clears a whole list by rule, and a Network Manager that loads everything into one table you can sort, search and pick from.
Three full cleanup runs are free and a run is unlimited in size, so the first pass through a backlog of any size costs nothing.
Sent invitations first, because the decision is easy. Connections last, because removals reduce your reach and are the hardest to undo.
Only removing connections does, because it removes the mutual follow. Unfollowing, withdrawing invitations and leaving groups do not affect reach at all.
At roughly four seconds per action, a few hundred items is well over an hour, and the page resetting its scroll position is what makes most people stop partway.
Unpend is a free Chrome extension that withdraws every pending invitation in a single run, and shows you the network LinkedIn will not. Three full cleanups free, any size, nothing leaves your browser.
Add to Chrome, free