How to send a video message on LinkedIn, which limits the platform actually publishes, and when a recording is worth a buyer's time.

What a LinkedIn video message is

A LinkedIn video message is a short video sent inside a one to one conversation, not published to the feed. Nobody else sees it, there is no comment box under it, and it sits in the thread like any other message. Knowing how to send a video message on LinkedIn takes about a minute.

Knowing when the recording earns its place takes longer, and that is most of this page. The feature is ordinary. What is unusual is a seller who uses it for something a paragraph could not carry.

Three things get mixed together. A video post goes to your network on LinkedIn and follows the published video requirements. A video message goes to one person and follows the messaging rules. A hosted link is just a URL, and LinkedIn treats it as one.

Those three surfaces have different limits, and most advice online quotes the feed limits while describing messages. This page keeps them apart.

How to send a video message on LinkedIn

LinkedIn Help documents recording inside a conversation in the mobile app. The steps below follow that article, then cover what changes on desktop.

1. Open the conversation in the LinkedIn mobile app

   Tap the Messaging icon in the upper right and open the thread with the person you want to reach. LinkedIn Help documents recording inside a conversation on iOS and Android, not on desktop.

2. Tap the Attach or Add icon

   On iOS the control is called Attach, on Android it is Add. Both open the same choices: take a photo or video, send media from your library, or send a GIF.

3. Record the video or choose one from your library

   Pick "Take a photo or video" to record on the spot, or "Send media from library" for a clip you already made. LinkedIn Help publishes no recording length for messages.

4. Watch it back before you send

   Play it once. Check that your face is lit, that the company name is audible, and that no notification, tab or document in the frame belongs to another customer.

5. Add one line of text with the video

   Say who you are and why the recording exists. Plenty of people read the line and never press play, so the line has to work on its own.

6. On desktop, upload the file instead

   In a desktop conversation, LinkedIn Help's steps use the Picture icon for photos and videos, or the Attach icon for a file up to 20 MB in MP4 or MOV.

GIFs behave differently in the same menu. LinkedIn Help notes that a GIF is sent immediately once you select it, with no preview step, which is a fast way to send something you did not mean to send.

Mobile versus desktop: what actually changes

The gap between the two is smaller than most guides claim, but it is real. Desktop can carry a video into the conversation. What LinkedIn Help does not describe on desktop is opening a camera and recording inside the thread.

The practical answer for a seller: record on the phone when you want a face and a room, and upload from desktop when the useful part is a screen recording you made elsewhere.

LinkedIn video message length and file limits

This is where published fact and internet folklore separate. LinkedIn Help publishes detailed video requirements, and those requirements are written for video you share to the feed, a Group or a Page. The messaging articles publish far less.

Read the right column honestly. Where it says not published, LinkedIn Help has no figure for messages, and this page is not going to invent one for you. If a blog quotes 60 seconds or 10 minutes for a message, ask which help article says so.

The number that matters day to day is the 20 MB in the attach steps. At normal phone quality that is a short clip, which is another reason the answer to "how long" in practice is under a minute.

Which video formats a LinkedIn message accepts

LinkedIn Help's attachment article gives a per platform table. For video it is short: MP4 and MOV on desktop, iOS and Android. That is the list for messages.

• MP4: the safe default. Every phone and screen recorder exports it, and it appears on all three platforms in the messaging table.
• MOV: also listed for messages. It is what an iPhone or a Mac screen recording often produces, so it saves a conversion step.
• Everything else: AVI, WEBM, MKV, WMV and the rest appear in LinkedIn's video sharing troubleshooting article, which is written for posts. Do not assume they pass in a message.
• Animated GIF: LinkedIn Help says its video platform does not accommodate animated GIFs, and GIFs in messaging go through a separate GIF picker.

One more figure gets misquoted often. LinkedIn Help's media file types article mentions a 100 MB cap, and that article is about featured samples of your work on your profile. It is not the messaging limit.

Video in InMail and Sales Navigator

InMail is the paid way to message someone you are not connected to, and it is where most sellers want video. LinkedIn Help is quiet on the subject, which is itself the answer.

The InMail articles describe what a message holds in text: 200 characters in the optional subject and 2000 in the body. Sales Navigator gives 200 for a required subject and 1900 for the body, with a saved signature capped at 150 characters inside that total.

None of those articles mention attaching a video. Our InMail entry covers the format itself, and the silence about video is consistent across every InMail page LinkedIn publishes.

The attachment picture inside Sales Navigator is muddier. Its compose article says you can attach a file up to 200 MB. Its dedicated attachment article says attachments cannot exceed 50 MB each and lists CSV, XLS, XLSX, DOC, DOCX, PDF, TXT and RTF, with no video format at all. Two LinkedIn pages, two different numbers.

Credits shape the decision too. LinkedIn Help says InMail credits expire after 90 days and come back when a recipient accepts, declines or replies to your InMail within 90 days.

Monthly allotments run from five on Premium Career to fifty on Sales Navigator Core. Spending one of those on an unwatched video is an expensive habit.

Message requests, invitations and video

Before the conversation exists, video is off the table. LinkedIn Help states plainly that attachments cannot be sent in message requests, which covers the coworker and Group routes into someone's inbox.

Connection notes are not a video surface either. The sequence that works is ordinary: connect or send a request in text, wait for acceptance, then use video once there is a thread. Our guide to connecting on LinkedIn covers the first step.

A declined message request is silent. LinkedIn Help says the sender is not notified when a member declines, so an ignored request and a refused one look identical from your side. That is a good reason not to spend recording time before acceptance.

Sending a video as a file or as a link

There are two honest routes, and they fail in different ways. Choose on purpose rather than by habit.

A link that lands on a page asking for a name and an email is not a video message. It is a form with a thumbnail. If you use a host, send the direct view link and nothing in front of it.

When a video message works, and when it annoys

Video is not a persuasion trick. It is a format that carries tone, a face and a screen, and it costs the recipient more attention than a paragraph. That trade is worth it in a small number of situations.

The honest test is simple. If the same recording could go to fifty people unchanged, it is a marketing asset, and it belongs on a page they can find, not in a private thread. LinkedIn prospecting lives or dies on that distinction.

Length is the other half. Nobody complains that a video was too short. A clip that runs past a minute is asking for a meeting before you have earned a reply, which is exactly the salesy move that gets messages archived.

Voice notes, the cheaper alternative

Before you create a video, ask whether a voice message would do the same job. It carries tone, takes no lighting and no tidy room, and it is the one messaging format where LinkedIn publishes a hard number.

LinkedIn Help says voice messages can be up to one minute long, that the feature is only available in the mobile app, and that you can send them to 1st-degree connections or in group chats. You hold the microphone icon to record and release to send, and you swipe away to delete before sending.

• Use voice when the content is a thought. A reaction, a nuance, an apology for a mixed-up call. None of that needs your face.
• Use video when the content is visual. Anything you would otherwise describe with "see the second tab on their pricing page" is a video.
• Use text when the prospect has to act on it. Dates, links, names and numbers belong somewhere they can copy, not somewhere they have to replay.
• Never send voice to a stranger. Like video, it presumes a relationship. LinkedIn restricts it to connections and group chats anyway.

The one minute cap is a useful discipline to borrow. If a voice note has to fit in sixty seconds, a video that a business buyer never asked for should not run longer.

A short video script written for this page

This script was written for this page. It is built for about forty seconds, spoken at a normal pace, and it assumes you already have a reason to be in this person's inbox.

[0:00] Hi {{firstName}}, it is {{senderName}} from {{company}}. This is under a minute, and I will not ask you for a meeting in it.

[0:05] I was reading {{thingTheyPublished}}, which is why you are getting a video and not a template.

[0:12] Here is the bit I wanted to show you. {{shareScreenAndPointAtOneThing}}

[0:28] Teams like yours usually handle that with {{commonApproach}}, and the part that gets expensive is {{specificCost}}.

[0:36] If that is worth ten minutes, reply with a day. If it is not your call, tell me whose it is and I will stop here. Thanks for the time.

Two rules keep the script honest. Say the length out loud at the start so the listener knows what they signed up for, and never claim to have read something you skimmed, because the specifics will not survive a reply.

Recording tips for sales

Most video messages fail on craft, not on content. These are the fixes that take the least effort per unit of improvement.

• Light in front, not behind. A window facing you fixes more than any camera upgrade. A window behind you turns your face into a silhouette.
• Use the microphone nearest your mouth. Wired earbuds beat a laptop's built in microphone in almost every room. Bad audio ends a video faster than bad picture.
• Start with their name and your reason. The first five seconds decide whether the rest is watched. Do not open with a greeting that says nothing.
• Clean the frame before you record. Close other conversations, hide the CRM, and turn off notifications. A visible customer name in your tab bar is a real problem.
• One take, not eight. A small stumble reads as human. A polished retake reads as an ad, and it costs you fifteen minutes per prospect.
• Look at the lens for the ask. Read your notes in the middle if you must, but face the camera when you say what you want.
• Record vertical for phones. Most recipients open LinkedIn on a phone, so a vertical or square frame wastes less screen than a wide one.

LinkedIn's own advice for messages points the same way. Its Sales Navigator guidance tells senders to be brief, to write as a conversation starter rather than a close, and to name what in the person's profile prompted the outreach. Those apply word for word to a recording, and our outreach tips cover the written half.

Accessibility and captions

This is the part most video messaging advice skips, and it is the part that decides whether some recipients can use your message at all.

LinkedIn Help documents two caption routes: auto captions generated when you upload, with a toggle to review them before viewers see them, and an SRT caption file attached from the desktop share box. Both articles describe the flow for sharing a video as a post. Neither describes captions for a video inside a conversation.

So plan for no captions in the thread and solve it yourself:

• Burn the subtitles into the file. Most editors and phone apps can render captions into the picture. That is the only version guaranteed to travel with a message attachment.
• Paste the short transcript under the video. Three or four lines covering the same ground lets someone read instead of listen, on a train or in an open office.
• Say the important thing in the text too. Never leave your ask audio only. If the whole point is locked in the soundtrack, a muted autoplay loses it.
• Keep key elements away from the edges. LinkedIn's safe zone guidance for shared video exists because the interface overlaps the frame, and the same happens to text you place at the bottom.

Treat this as a reach question rather than a compliance one. A recipient who is deaf, in a meeting, or simply somewhere they cannot play sound is a large share of a business audience on a weekday.

The message text that goes with the video

A video with no text is a closed box. The person sees a thumbnail of a stranger and has to spend a minute to find out what you want, which is exactly the wrong order.

Write the line as though the video will never be played, because for many recipients it will not. State who you are, why them, how long the clip runs, and the one thing you want back. The template below does that in four lines, and more sit in our template library.

Keep the ask small. A video already asks for attention, so pairing it with a calendar link asks twice. One question that can be answered with a word travels much further.

How to tell whether video messages are working

You will not get a view count from LinkedIn Messaging. What you can compare is what happened after messages that had a video against messages that did not, on the same segment, in the same period.

Run the comparison over a full quarter before you decide. Recording videos costs real minutes per prospect, so the question is not whether video works in general but whether it creates more value per hour than the messages you would have written instead.

One signal is often misread. A read receipt tells you the message was opened, not that the video was played, and it only appears when both people have delivery and typing indicators turned on, as our entry on LinkedIn read receipts explains.

Where a video fits in a sequence

Video is a middle step, not an opener. The pattern below is written for this page and assumes a connection or an accepted request already exists.

The reason video sits after the first reply is volume. LinkedIn Help says it limits how many messages a member can send in a time period, and Sales Navigator does not allow InMail to be sent in bulk, so the cheap touches should come first and the expensive one should be earned.

Build the whole thing as a sales cadence and decide in advance which step carries the recording. Deciding in the moment means you record for whoever you happen to be looking at.

Where video sits in the rest of your outreach

A video message is one asset in a wider outreach program, and it should reuse what the rest of it already knows. The research that makes a cold email specific makes a video specific too, and the same recording rarely survives a change of persona.

Personalized video is worth the minutes on a small list of named accounts. It is not worth it on a list you bought, and a recording cannot create relevance that the targeting did not.

Tools, as categories

This page does not rank vendors or quote their numbers. These are the categories sellers actually use:

• Phone camera and the LinkedIn app: free, native, and enough for a personal clip. It is the only route LinkedIn Help documents for recording in a thread.
• Screen recorders: capture a browser window with your face in a corner, then export MP4 or MOV for a message, or host it and send the link.
• Hosted video messaging platforms: record, host, produce a thumbnail and report their own view data. Their view counts come from their own tracking, not from LinkedIn.
• Caption and editing tools: burn subtitles into the file, trim the first dead seconds, and crop to a vertical frame.

Automation deserves a separate warning. Bulk video personalization sits close to the line that LinkedIn automation tools cross, and a video that looks personal but was produced a thousand times is worse than an honest template.

The pitch for those tools is a personalized video for every prospect at outreach volume, usually a generic recording with a name card or a cloned voice in front of it. If a prospect can tell, and they usually can, the tool has spent your credibility to save your time.

Common video message mistakes

• Sending the video before a single text message has been answered.
• Quoting the feed limits, such as 15 minutes, as though they apply to messages.
• Recording four minutes because no help page told you to stop at one.
• Pasting a link that lands on a gated page instead of the video.
• No captions and no transcript, so half the audience cannot use it.
• A thumbnail of your product instead of your face, which removes the only advantage video had.
• Spending an InMail credit on a cold video to someone who never accepted a request.
• Asking for a meeting in the video and again in the text, so the message has two asks and no answer.

The text to send alongside the video

The template below is the message that sits next to the clip. It was written for this page. It works on its own if the video is never played, which is the only way to write it.

Hi {{firstName}}, I recorded {{seconds}} seconds instead of writing five paragraphs.

Short version in case you never press play: {{oneLineReason}}.

The video shows {{whatItShows}}, and it names your team, not a generic example. If this is not your call, or not the quarter for it, one word back is a useful answer.

{{senderName}}

Frequently asked questions