If you are even moderately serious about utilizing LinkedIn to your professional advantage, you probably heavily use the mobile app. It’s perfect for browsing your feed wherever you are and keeping up with your contacts and industry news. But is it any good for posting?
Well, yes and no. The LinkedIn mobile app is certainly indispensable for sharing updates on the go. For more elaborate posts, it can get inconvenient pretty fast. This is mostly due to its inflexibility with drafts. Let’s take a closer look.
How do I write a post on the LinkedIn mobile app?
Creating a LinkedIn post draft on the mobile app is fairly straightforward. Pick up your preferred mobile device and launch the app. Sign in if you haven’t previously. You should automatically see your “Home” page and your feed.
Now look to the top of your screen, and you will see a "Start a post" field. Tap on it, and the mobile editor will open up, along with the standard “What do you want to talk about?” prompt.
Choose whether you want to add anything to your post (e.g. images, video, and so on). Then write out the text you want and apply your chosen formatting. From there, you can either post the content immediately or save it as a draft, which we further discuss below.
How do I save my LinkedIn post draft on the mobile app?
The short answer is: just like you would on almost any other platform. Write a post in the text editor and save it as a draft instead of publishing it immediately. Here’s a more detailed look at how to go about that:
- Go to your homepage.
- Click “Start a post”. On mobile, this is on the top of the screen, right after the search field.
- Write your post in that prompt field.
- Find the X button in the upper right and click it.
- Another popup window will come up with the prompt “Save this post as a draft?”
- Click on “Save as draft,” and you should get a confirmation message that your draft was saved successfully.
- When you want to access your draft again, revisit the LinkedIn editor.
Remember that all of this applies to text content only. When you draft a LinkedIn post, you cannot edit any photos or videos. Instead, you have to delete the visuals, make the desired edits in a separate program, and re-upload those new versions into your LinkedIn post draft.
Can I autosave post drafts on LinkedIn?
Unfortunately, you cannot natively save a post draft on LinkedIn in the middle of writing. If anything happens, your work is gone.
That's why the LinkedIn feed is full of stories like this, where people invest a lot of time and then lose everything in a second:
The best way to prevent that from happening?
Use a tool that can autosave drafts on LinkedIn for you.
AuthoredUp is an excellent choice for this purpose. It was built specifically for LinkedIn, so it has all the capabilities that you wish LinkedIn natively had. This includes autosaving your post drafts while you work.
Write your post in the extension’s editor and save it as a draft. You can come back later for an unlimited number of revisions. Once you are happy with the post, copy it onto LinkedIn and publish it.
Beware, however: this fix applies to desktop only. As of the time of writing this guide, a LinkedIn post draft on the mobile app will not be saved mid-writing. If the app freezes or crashes, if your Internet connection falters, or if your device has a hiccup of any kind, your writing will be lost.
How do I find my post drafts on the Linkedin app?
Sadly, LinkedIn allows you to save only one draft on mobile and on desktop. And you will see them when you open a post editor from the mobile app.
LinkedIn drafts in the app behave exactly the same as those on the desktop. When you start a post in the mobile app, you can tap on the X in the corner to leave the editor, and it will prompt you to either go back to typing, save the post as a draft, or discard it entirely.
If you choose to save the post as a draft, it will be there when you open the editor next time - on mobile. It will not be available via LinkedIn desktop. Likewise, whatever ideas for LinkedIn posts you were developing via the site in-browser will not be accessible in the app. In other words, the feature doesn’t synchronize.
So, if you want to put together, format, or preview a post on LinkedIn on the go, you have to do it in the app from start to finish. The app editor is located on the top, like on the desktop.
TL,DR: You can save only one draft. There is no “Publishing menu”, and consequently, there is no “My drafts” depository.
Why is saving drafts on LinkedIn important?
Saving drafts on LinkedIn and accessing them wherever you are at any time will drastically contribute to your content strategy. There are three immense benefits to having this capability: a fresh perspective, flexible time management, and more freedom in your personal schedule.
To begin with, saving your planned content in draft form gives you some precious mental space. You can flesh out your ideas and then let yourself rest without losing any content. After a day or a few, you can revisit what you wrote. The time away will let you see your post draft with fresh eyes and notice any improvements you can make.
Next, having the option to save multiple drafts at once will save you tons of time and effort in the long run. You can prepare content for several weeks in advance and keep it all safe until it’s time to publish.
This way, you have a solid backup in case life gets in the way and you can’t produce fresh content when you planned. If you relied on LinkedIn’s native functions, you would have to write your posts one at a time, all close to their intended publication time, which is quite inflexible and frankly annoying.
And finally, tying into the previous point, having multiple post drafts saved and accessible dramatically frees up your personal time. You don’t have to be tied to a desktop whenever you want to edit or publish your content. Just access your LinkedIn drafts in the app, make any changes you would like, and post on the go.
Alternatively, schedule each draft as you save it and let them be published at predetermined times while you do whatever else you like. In that case, just keep in mind that any scheduled draft will be published as-is. If you want to make any corrections or improvements, they have to be done before the scheduled posting time.
Sum up
So, to sum up, working with a LinkedIn post draft on the mobile app is still a far cry from the desktop experience. The biggest issue is that the two don’t synchronize.
Both on desktop and in-app, the draft you save will wait for you when you open the editor next time. Furthermore, in both cases, you can only save one draft at a time.
The best you can do, at least for now, is to get a tailored extension like AuthoredUp. Split your content strategy between your devices. Write and format your post drafts on your desktop, and save multiple drafts for later use. Schedule the posts a stretch of time in advance, and relegate the app to just browsing your feed and posting simple updates on the go.