Network sharing

Network sharing lets you and one of your connections agree to search each other's networks. Once you both say yes, each of you can search the people the other can find, from the community picker, and you each see when the other searched yours, never what they searched for.

Who can share

• Both of you need a Plus, Pro or Org plan. A free trial or the Free plan is not enough, and neither is a plan still in its trial period. An organization plan counts when you hold one of its seats. Without a plan, Settings → Network sharing shows Network sharing needs a Plus, Pro or Org plan with See plans.
• You must be connected. You can ask only an accepted connection (see My Network).
• Both accounts must be verified, and neither of you can have blocked the other.
• You can have up to 50 shares and pending requests at once.

Asking a connection

Ask from Settings → Network sharing with Share with a connection, from Share networks in the … menu on their profile, or from the Shared networks tab of the community picker. Before you send, the request shows What … can find, What … never sees and What you see (all three are below), and you can add a message of up to 500 characters. Choose Send request.

Your connection gets the request as a card in your conversation, with Accept and Decline, provided they accept messages from you or you already have a conversation. It also waits for them on the Shared networks tab, with Review, and under Pending in Settings → Network sharing, with Review and accept. Until they answer, Cancel request withdraws it.

If they decline, or end a share you had, you can ask them again after 30 days; the app tells you from which date.

What your connection can find

Your shared network is the people you can find yourself:

• your connections;
• the members of your communities, as you see them in your own searches there, member records that were imported included. A community whose admins closed it to shared networks is left out (see Search tuning). On a computer, Discover communities marks each community you belong to Open to members' shared networks or Exclusive.

It never includes your personal network: the contacts you imported there stay yours alone. Nor does it pass on networks other people share with you, people blocked with you or with your connection, or anyone who turned off Let shared networks find me (below), unless your connection can already see them.

Your connection never sees which of your communities someone is in, the data your communities keep on their members, your private notes, or your own searches.

Searching a shared network

On the Shared networks tab of the community picker, each network reads Name's network, with when you last searched it; choose one to make it the scope of a new search. The composer then reads Searching …'s network, and reminds you that the owner will see that you searched, when, and how many results came from it, but not what you searched, until you close that notice (it stays closed in this browser). A paused share is listed but cannot be chosen.

In a shared network you can run Fast and Deep Searches, ask follow-ups and ask about someone by name; asking about one person from the results (a match card's question, or a question on one card) is not available there yet. Those conversations stay with that network: pick it again to find them. Shared networks are searched in the app only, not from the chat bots, the API or the MCP server.

Include in All my network, a switch on each share in Settings → Network sharing, is on by default: your All my network searches then also cover that network, up to 10 shared networks, and the picker shows how many. At equal relevance, people from your own communities and connections come first.

What a result from a shared network shows

A result found through a shared network carries a Name's network badge, which names the owner only (with +1, +2 and so on when other networks led there too); choosing it starts a new search in that network while the share is active.

If you can already see that person (you share a community, you are connected, or their profile is public), the card is the usual one. Otherwise their profile and contact details stay private: the card has no link to their profile and no Connect, and offers Ask … for an introduction, which opens a message to the network's owner that you can edit before sending. You can still save that person to a project; collaborators who don't share that network see only their name and headline.

When you come back to an older search and the share has ended or paused, or the person is no longer in that network, their card reads No longer shared.

Who pays

You pay for your own searches, at the usual price (see Plans and credits). A search in a shared network is paid like a search across all your communities: from your own credits, or your organization's where you hold a seat. Never by the network's owner, and never by a community.

Seeing who searched your network

Activity, at the bottom of Settings → Network sharing, has two tabs: In your network (who searched your network or asked a follow-up there, when, and how many results came from it, marked via All my network when it came from such a search) and Your searches (the same for the networks you searched). What was searched is never recorded. Entries are kept for 12 months, and stay after a share ends.

Pausing and stopping

A share pauses while either of you has no Plus, Pro or Org plan, and while either account is unavailable (an archived profile, or an account under review). It resumes on its own when that is no longer the case.

Stop sharing, on the share in Settings → Network sharing, ends it for both of you at once. You can ask again later, or, if the other person stopped it, after 30 days. A share also ends on its own when you are no longer connected or either of you blocks the other.

Staying out of shared networks

Let shared networks find me, in Settings → Account under Visibility, is on by default. Turn it off and people searching a network shared with them no longer find you there, unless they can already see you anyway. It changes nothing else about who can find you.

Privacy

Deleting your account deletes your shares and the activity entries that name you. Your data export includes your shares and both tabs of the activity (see Privacy & GDPR).