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How to find the exact date of a LinkedIn post
- Copy the post's link. On a computer, click the More icon in the top right corner of the post, then Copy link to post. In the app, tap More, then Share via, then Copy.
- Paste it into the box above. The date shows as soon as the link is in, in UTC and in the time zone your device is set to.
- For a comment, paste a link to the comment itself, one with "commentUrn" in it. You get the post's date and the comment's and how long after the post the comment came.
Where the date comes from
Every LinkedIn post has a 19-digit ID and it sits in the post's link after "activity", "ugcPost" or "share". Written in binary, the ID is 63 digits long and the first 41 of them are the moment the post was created: a count of milliseconds since 1 January 1970 in UTC, known as a Unix timestamp. The extractor reads those 41 digits and turns them into a date.
LinkedIn doesn't document this. Developer Ollie Boyd worked the method out and published it on GitHub. We checked it against LinkedIn's developer documentation for posts and for comments, which list sample IDs with the exact time each was created. Every sample post decodes to within a quarter of a second of its listed time and every sample comment to within two thousandths of a second.
| LinkedIn's sample | Created, as LinkedIn lists it | Read from the ID |
|---|---|---|
| Post 6856810298419044352 | 21 Oct 2021, 04:36:08.743 UTC | 21 Oct 2021, 04:36:08.518 UTC |
| Post 6864691044148133888 | 11 Nov 2021, 22:31:24.769 UTC | 11 Nov 2021, 22:31:24.717 UTC |
| Comment 6915442672119734272 | 31 Mar 2022, 23:40:15.746 UTC | 31 Mar 2022, 23:40:15.745 UTC |
Which links give a date
| The link | What you get |
|---|---|
| A post, from Copy link to post | The post's date and time, whether the link says activity, ugcPost or share. |
| A comment or a reply | The post's date, plus the comment's or the reply's and the gap between them. |
| A repost with your own words added | The repost's date: LinkedIn's developer documentation creates a reshare as a new post with its own ID. To date the original, open it and copy its link. |
| An article (linkedin.com/pulse/...) | No date from the link: an article's address carries no post ID. If the article was shared in a post, paste that post's link. |
| A short lnkd.in link | Open it first, then copy the full address it leads to. |
| A profile, page, job or event | No date: these aren't posts. |
Tips
- Check how fresh a post is before you mention it. A post from this week is a good reason to write to someone. One from last year is a reason to look for something newer.
- Quote UTC when you share the date. It is the same for everyone, wherever they read it.
- Date the comment, not just the post. In a long thread, the comment's own time tells you whether the conversation is still live.
- Trust the ID over the feed. The feed rounds a post's age to days, weeks or months. The ID keeps the time to within a second.
Questions
How do I see the exact date of a LinkedIn post?
Copy the post's link with More, then Copy link to post and paste it into the extractor. It reads the date and time from the ID in the link and shows them in UTC and in your own time zone.
How accurate is the date?
Within a second. LinkedIn's developer documentation lists when its sample posts were created and their IDs decode to within a quarter of a second of those times.
Does it work on comments?
Yes. A comment's link carries the post's ID and the comment's own and both hold a time, so you get both dates and the gap between them.
Why does my link show no date?
Short lnkd.in links, articles, profiles and company pages carry no post ID. Open the post itself and copy its link with More, then Copy link to post.
Does editing a post change its date?
The ID holds the time the post was created and LinkedIn's developer documentation edits a post under the same ID, so an edited post should still show when it first went up.
Does the extractor send my link anywhere?
No. It works in your browser and nothing you paste leaves this page.
Related tools
Where FOUND fits
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