LinkedIn Growth4 min read
How to Turn Off Creator Mode on LinkedIn in 2026
How to turn off creator mode on LinkedIn now that the on/off toggle is gone. What replaced it, how to switch your Follow button back to Connect, and what to keep.
By Animesh Kudake, Co-founder, Apna Project
The short version
- There is no creator mode on/off toggle anymore. LinkedIn removed it in March 2024, so you cannot flip creator mode off the way older guides describe.
- What most people actually want is to change the big Follow button on their profile back to Connect. That control still exists, just in a different place.
- The button preference lives under Settings and Privacy, in the Visibility section, under your follower settings. LinkedIn moves these menus, so check its own help page if the labels differ.
- Turning off "creator mode" no longer removes analytics or badges. Creator tools like post analytics and Top Voice eligibility are now available to everyone who qualifies, toggle or not.
- Switching back to Connect is worth it only if you want two-way networking more than a growing follower count. Decide by what you use LinkedIn for, not by the default.
Where the setting lives now
As of mid-2026, the button preference sits inside Settings and Privacy. Open the "Me" menu, go to Settings and Privacy, then into the Visibility section, and look for your follower or Follow settings. There you can set Connect as the primary action on your profile instead of Follow.
We are being deliberately careful with the exact clicks, because LinkedIn reshuffles these menus more often than almost any other product. If a label does not match what you see, do not assume the option is gone. Check LinkedIn's own help center for the current path rather than trusting a step-by-step screenshot from a year ago, including ours.
Turning off following entirely
Changing the button to Connect does not stop people from following you. If you want to switch following off altogether, that is a separate control, also in the Visibility area of Settings and Privacy, under your follower settings.
Be aware of the trade-off. Turning following off means people who are not yet connected to you lose an easy, low-commitment way to keep seeing your posts. For a lot of professionals that is fine. For anyone trying to build an audience, it removes a useful on-ramp.
The creator tools did not disappear
Here is the part the old guides get wrong. Turning off creator mode used to hide your analytics and creator features. That is no longer how it works.
Post and audience analytics are now available to members regardless of any toggle. Eligibility for features like newsletters, and recognition programs such as the LinkedIn Top Voice badge, depend on your activity and standing, not on a switch you did or did not flip. So you can move your button back to Connect and keep every analytic and tool you were using. There is no longer a penalty for "leaving" creator mode, because there is no mode to leave.
Should you actually switch back to Connect?
Now the judgment call, because the setting is easy and the decision is the real work.
Keep Follow as your primary button if your LinkedIn presence is built on reaching people who do not know you yet. Follow is the lower-friction action, it grows your audience faster, and it suits anyone publishing regularly for a broad readership. Growth does not require constant posting either, as we cover in how to grow on LinkedIn without posting, but a Follow-first profile leans toward broadcast.
Switch to Connect if you care more about a two-way professional network than a follower count, if most of your value comes from people you can message directly, or if the Follow button has been costing you connection requests you actually wanted. Neither choice changes your reach on its own, since that is driven by engagement and relevance, which we explain in how the LinkedIn algorithm works.
We spend our days thinking about LinkedIn engagement rather than profile settings, and the pattern we notice is that people fixate on the button when the thing holding back their profile is that they rarely show up in anyone's feed. The setting takes thirty seconds. Deciding what you want your profile to do for you is the part worth the time. Fix that first, then pick the button that matches it.
Frequently asked questions
How do I turn creator mode off on LinkedIn?
You cannot toggle it off, because LinkedIn removed the on/off switch in March 2024. The features that used to live behind it are now unbundled. To undo the most visible effect, change your profile button from Follow back to Connect in Settings and Privacy under Visibility. Everything else stays available.
Is creator mode removed from LinkedIn?
The single on/off toggle was removed in March 2024. Creator mode as a bundle no longer exists. The individual pieces, like the Follow-first button, creator analytics, and eligibility for features such as newsletters and Top Voice, were separated out and given to qualifying members directly.
How do I get my Connect button back instead of Follow?
Open Settings and Privacy, go to the Visibility section, find your follower or "Follow" settings, and set Connect as the primary action rather than Follow. LinkedIn occasionally renames these menus, so if a label does not match, its help center has the current path.
Will turning off Follow hurt my reach?
Not directly. Reach on LinkedIn comes from engagement and relevance, not from whether your primary button is Follow or Connect. Switching to Connect mainly changes how strangers add you. If your growth depends on followers you do not personally know, keeping Follow may suit you better.
Written by the team building Commenti on real LinkedIn growth data. Found an error? Tell us and we’ll fix it. Accuracy beats winning.
Co-founder, Apna Project
Co-founder at Apna Project, where he helps founders and agencies turn ideas into products. Writes here on LinkedIn growth and what actually earns attention in a comment section. Commenti is the LinkedIn comment automation tool by Ampliflow.
If you searched for how to turn off creator mode on LinkedIn and every guide tells you to find a toggle in the Resources section of your profile, stop looking. That toggle is gone.
LinkedIn removed the creator mode on/off switch in March 2024. So the honest first answer is that there is nothing to switch off anymore. What you can do is change the specific things creator mode used to do, and that is almost certainly what brought you here.
Let us sort out what actually changed and how to undo the parts you do not want.
The short version: there is no toggle now
Creator mode used to be a bundle. Flip it on and you got a Follow button as your default, a couple of "creator" fields near the top of your profile, access to features like LinkedIn Live and newsletters, and a set of analytics. Flip it off and all of that reverted.
In early 2024 LinkedIn announced it was retiring that single switch, and per its own Updates to Creator Mode help page, the on/off toggle was removed in March 2024. Instead of one bundle, the pieces were separated and handed out individually. That is why the old instructions no longer match what you see.
So "turning off creator mode" is now really a question of turning off one or two specific things.
What you probably actually want to change
For most people, the annoying part of creator mode was the button. When it is on, visitors see a large Follow button as the primary action on your profile instead of Connect, which quietly nudges people to follow you rather than send a connection request.
If you would rather people connect with you, that is the setting to change. Following and connecting are genuinely different relationships, and we unpack why so many profiles now lead with Follow in why LinkedIn profiles say Follow instead of Connect. Reading that first helps you decide whether you even want to switch it back.