> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.harvestapi.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Using Custom Accounts

> How to use your own LinkedIn accounts with HarvestAPI for scraping LinkedIn data

For some endpoints, you might want to use your personal LinkedIn account to get better results.
For example, to get better results from the [Profile Search](/linkedin-api-reference/profile/search) endpoint.

HarvestAPI can use user-supplier LinkedIn accounts. All API endpoints support these query parameters:

* `cookie` : your LinkedIn cookie base64 encoded. You can export your cookie via the browser extension [Cookie-Editor](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/cookie-editor/hlkenndednhfkekhgcdicdfddnkalmdm/).
  After installing it, navigate to Sales Navigator page -> open extension popup -> click "Export" -> JSON.
  Use any base64 encoder ([for example](https://www.base64encode.org/)) to encode the JSON and pass it as the `cookie` parameter.
* `proxy` (optionally): We recommend you to find a clean residential/mobile proxy.
  Proxy location should ideally match your login location. When it's not provided, the scraper will use our proxy pool.
  Proxy format is `http://username:password@ip:port` or `socks5://username:password@ip:port`
* `userAgent` (optionally): We also recommend to provide your User Agent, otherwise LinkedIn may log you out
  after scraping a few pages. If you keep getting logged out, copy your user agent from the same browser where
  you exported your cookie, [for example via a tool](https://www.whatismybrowser.com/detect/what-is-my-user-agent/).

### Side notes on using custom accounts

* If your account wasn't used actively, and you start scraping hundreds of pages immediately, LinkedIn may restrict your account.
  Start scraping slowly and increase the activity gradually.
* Ideally proxy external IP address shouldn't change. Use static proxies, or proxies with long sticky sessions.
* Don't forget to check IP quality of your proxy, for example `ipqualityscore.com` Proxy Detection Test
  should ideally show all green checks, [for example](https://www.ipqualityscore.com/free-ip-lookup-proxy-vpn-test/lookup/172.56.84.82)

## Example

```js theme={null}
const params = new URLSearchParams({
  search: 'Director',
  location: 'US',
  cookie: btoa(JSON.stringify([{ domain: '.linkedin.com', expirationDate: 'etc...' }])), // `btoa` helper to base64 encode the cookie
  // cookie: btoa('_guid=e67a3e9e-1234-1234-1234-12345678; lang=v=2&lang=en-us; liap=true; ... ') // copying the cookie from the devtool will also work
  proxy: 'http://user:password@example.com:8080',
  userAgent:
    'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/136.0.0.0 Safari/537.36',
});
fetch(`https://api.harvestapi.io/linkedin/profile-search?${params.toString()}`, {
  headers: { 'X-API-Key': '<api-key>' },
})
  .then((response) => response.json())
  .then((data) => console.log(data));
```

## Next Steps

Check out the [API Reference](/linkedin-api-reference/) for detailed information on each API endpoint.