Why an import takes time

Imports are paced on purpose. LinkedIn is sensitive to fast, mechanical data collection — particularly from a new or lightly used account — so LinkedLeads puts deliberate gaps between actions rather than going as fast as the network will allow.

What the pacing buys you

Spacing the requests out makes the traffic look like someone reading pages rather than a script pulling them. That reduces the chance of being flagged, of picking up a temporary restriction, and of doing slow damage to an account you rely on.

What that means in practice

A large Sales Navigator import — a full day's allowance of 2,500 leads — runs over a couple of hours rather than a couple of minutes.

You do not have to sit and watch it. Imports run in the background, and the task progress tracker at the top of the sidebar shows what is pending, what is running and what has finished.

Why it is not configurable

Speed is worth very little if the account doing the work gets restricted. The pacing is one of the few things standing between a large import and a warning from LinkedIn, so it is not something you can turn off.