Why Harp runs LinkedIn from your own Mac, not the cloud

There are three common ways to automate LinkedIn. Run the account from a cloud server or proxy. Put an extension in the browser that works inside the page. Or call LinkedIn through an unofficial API. All three are easier to build than what we built, and all three take your session somewhere it does not normally live.

The account is the asset

For a founder or a senior seller, the LinkedIn account is years of network and reputation. We did not want Harp to be the reason it gets restricted. So we started from one question: what is the least unusual way for this account to act? The answer is the way it already acts: in your Chrome, on your machine, one click at a time.

What that meant in practice

• Harp drives Chrome from outside the browser, at the operating-system level: real mouse movement and typing, with varied timing.
• It navigates by clicking and searching, never by pasting profile URLs.
• It reads the screen to know where it is, because LinkedIn’s pages change and a script that assumes a layout will eventually click the wrong thing.
• Every message and invitation goes through an identity check first. When the check is not sure, Harp does not send. We would rather miss a step than message the wrong person.

The trade-offs we accepted

It is slower. Your Mac has to be on. One Mac runs one account. It only works on macOS for now. Those are real costs, and for an agency rotating dozens of accounts they rule Harp out. For a person whose own account matters, we think they are the right costs to pay. And to be clear: no tool can guarantee LinkedIn will never restrict an account. Ours is built to keep activity at human volumes and patterns.