The Wren Browser Extension: Install, Connect, and What It Does

How to install and connect the optional Wren Chrome extension, what its three features do, and how it protects your privacy.

The Wren browser extension is one Chrome extension that connects your LinkedIn activity to your Wren account. It is completely optional and opt-in: it does nothing until you install it and connect it to your account (one click in Settings). Wren works fine without it, so install it only if you want the conveniences below.

What the extension does

The extension handles three things, all single-user and all tied to your own account:

• LinkedIn analytics sync. It reads your own LinkedIn post metrics — impressions, reactions, comments, reposts, members reached, saves, sends, and profile viewers, plus follower growth — from the LinkedIn pages you are already logged in to, and syncs them to Wren so your content performance lives where you write. To keep your analytics updated and pick up new posts as you publish, turn on Keep my analytics up to date automatically in Settings → Connected Accounts → Extension. The first time it runs, Wren imports your past posts once — up to your last 100, or the last 12 months, whichever comes first. Reach and engagement for older posts come in within the first hour; profile visits fill in more slowly over the following days, a few pages an hour. After that it keeps checking your recent posts and doesn't crawl your whole history. If your computer or Chrome is off, the import simply picks up where it left off next time.
• Save to Wren. Right-click any page and choose Save to Wren for a one-click save to your Sources → Saved tab — or click the extension's toolbar icon to open its popup and use the Save button there. Either way, the articles you read become raw material for post ideas.
• Onboarding capture. During first-time setup, and only when you ask it to, it reads your own LinkedIn profile (name, headline, about) and recent posts to pre-fill your writing profile and writing samples, so you don't have to copy them in by hand.

How to install and connect it

1. In Wren, go to Settings → Connected Accounts and select the Extension tab. Click View it on the Chrome Web Store and add the extension to Chrome.
2. Back in that section, click Connect extension. The first time, Wren shows a short disclosure explaining the one-time profile and posts read that helps set up your writing profile (it reads your own LinkedIn pages and never posts or changes anything). Acknowledge it once (your choice is remembered), and Wren mints and hands the connection token to the extension for you — nothing to copy. If Wren doesn't already have your LinkedIn profile URL, it asks for it once here.
3. To keep your analytics updated on an ongoing basis, turn on Keep my analytics up to date automatically in Settings → Connected Accounts → Extension. You'll see a second, brief explanation of what ongoing capture does before it starts.
4. The status row then shows Connected · last check-in … (with a green dot) once the extension reaches Wren, with a second line saying when your post analytics last synced. If it reads Extension not detected, install it first — and if you installed it while this page was already open, refresh the page: your browser only lets a page see the extension when the page loads, so a tab opened before the install can't detect it until you reload. If it reads Connected — but we couldn't read LinkedIn, log into LinkedIn in a normal tab and click Sync.

If you ever need it, there is also a manual setup path under Advanced / having trouble connecting? at the bottom of the extension section. Copy a fresh connection token and the Wren API URL from there, click Open extension settings to open the extension's options page directly from within Wren, then paste the token and API URL along with your LinkedIn profile URL and run a backfill. The one-click Connect extension button is the normal path.

Privacy: what it can and can't see

The extension only ever reads data for the LinkedIn account already signed in on your browser. It reads your own analytics and profile; it does not access other members' private data, and it never bypasses LinkedIn login or access controls.

Everything it reads is sent only to your own Wren account over a secure HTTPS connection, authenticated with your token. Nothing is shared with third parties and nothing is sold.

Staying in control

You are always in charge:

• Background capture never starts without your say-so. The first time you connect, you acknowledge a plain-language disclosure of the one-time profile and posts read. Ongoing analytics syncing is a separate opt-in — the Keep my analytics up to date automatically switch in Settings → Connected Accounts → Extension — and you see a second explanation before it starts.
• You'll see a heads-up when a sync starts. When a sync session starts, Wren opens its hidden background window (on a Mac it may appear for a brief moment before minimizing) and a Chrome notification appears: _"Wren is syncing your LinkedIn analytics.__" Clicking the notification just dismisses it. If you'd rather not see it, click its Don't show this again button (hover over the notification and click the small arrow to reveal it), or turn it off — and back on — with the Notify when background sync starts switch in Settings → Connected Accounts → Extension.
• Pause or resume capture, or run a connection test, from the extension's options page. Analytics capture is rate-limited (about 15 pages an hour) and runs throttled in a minimized background window on your own LinkedIn pages, and it never writes to LinkedIn. On macOS that window may briefly appear when it is created. If you accidentally surface that background window (on macOS this often happens when it's your only Chrome window and you click the dock icon), Wren shows a notification explaining what the window is — on macOS with no other open Chrome window, the notification includes an Open a new Chrome window button. If you click into the window, Wren re-minimizes it and leaves a short explanation on the page itself. If you surface it repeatedly, Wren releases the window to you, explains what happened on the page, and pauses syncing for a while (about half an hour) before quietly resuming in a new background window — pressing Run backfill now resumes immediately.
• Uninstall it from Chrome's extensions page, which immediately stops all capture and removes its locally stored settings.

For full details, see Section 14 of the Privacy Policy.

Still need help?

Can't find what you're looking for? Email us at support@writewithwren.com and we'll get back to you.