Privacy
Secret vs public Pinterest boards: what ‘public’ actually exposes
Published · Lucas Viegas · 6 min read
A public Pinterest board can be seen by anyone: on your profile, in Pinterest search and, unless you turn on search privacy, in Google. A secret board, which Pinterest now calls a private board, is visible only to you and the people you invite.
Those are the only two states a personal account gets; nothing unlisted sits in between. Below: who sees what, what stays yours, how collaborators fit in, what Google can index, what a flip changes, and why third-party apps only read public boards.
Are Pinterest boards public by default?
Yes. A new board is public unless you flip the privacy switch, labelled Keep this board secret on the web and Make this board secret in the iPhone and Android apps. Afterwards the same switch sits in the board’s settings as Make this board private. Pinterest uses both words for one setting, so this post does too.
Business accounts also get protected boards, an advertiser tool from the ads bulk editor: Pinterest says they sit in a profile section only you can see, yet their Pins may surface in search and feeds, and a direct link opens them.
Who can see a public Pinterest board?
Pinterest’s own wording is brief: public boards are visible on your profile and in search, and anyone can see the public content you post, such as the boards and Pins you create. Anyone includes followers, strangers, logged-out visitors, search engines and software that reads Pinterest’s public pages. The table lines up board types and profile settings.
| Board or setting | You | Followers | Anyone on Pinterest | Search engines | Third-party apps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public board | Yes | Yes | Yes | May be indexed | Yes |
| Secret (private) board | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Public group board | Yes | Yes | Yes | May be indexed | Yes |
| Private group board | Yes, plus invited collaborators | Invited collaborators only | No | No | No |
| Public board, search privacy on | Yes | Yes | Yes | Asked to exclude it | Yes, it only tags pages for search engines |
| Public board on a private profile | Yes | Invited followers only | No | No, search privacy is forced on | Not documented |
What does a public board show, and what stays yours?
A visitor sees the board’s name, description and sections, every Pin on it and the profile it belongs to. A save to a public board can reach the person you saved from: Pinterest documents the mirror case, that a save to a private board sends no notification and does not increase the Pin’s count. Comments are public too; Pinterest tells teens plainly that the comments you leave can be viewed by other people, and a Pin’s creator can turn comments off or delete them.
Some things stay yours on a public board. The More ideas and Shop tabs are visible only to the board’s owner. Home-feed suggestions drawn from your private boards are visible only to you. Notifications arrive to you, on Pinterest, by email or by push; they are a setting, not a public record.
How do group boards and invited collaborators work?
A group board is an ordinary board with collaborators: everyone invited can add and organize Pins, and group boards can be public or private. The owner chooses what collaborators may do, Do (almost) everything, Save and comment or Invite other people, and can allow board requests. Invitations go by name, username, email or link, and the invitee gets an email or notification.
Two consequences. On a private group board the circle is you plus everyone invited, and Invite other people lets collaborators widen it without asking. On a public group board a collaborator’s saves are as public as yours: privacy is one setting for the whole board, not per person. Collaborators can leave at any time; only the owner can delete the board.
Do public Pinterest boards show up on Google?
They can. Pinterest says Google, Bing and Yahoo may show your profile or boards. To opt out, open Settings, then Profile visibility, and turn on Search privacy: Pinterest adds a tag to your pages asking search engines to exclude your profile and boards. The tag goes on right away, but already-indexed pages can linger; for those, Pinterest points you to the search engine’s own removal request. You must be 18 to change it; on a private profile it is switched on for you.
Search privacy is not a board setting. The board stays public on Pinterest and to anything that reads Pinterest’s public widgets; it only asks search engines to look away.
What happens when I flip a board from secret to public, or back?
Instantly, in both directions: turn Make this board private off and the board appears on your profile and in Pinterest search; turn it on and it vanishes for everyone but you and your collaborators. With no unlisted state, a board is fully public the moment it is public, worth remembering before you flip an unfinished one.
Followers are the grey area. People can follow your boards as well as you, but Pinterest’s help pages do not say whether a board follow survives a spell as private. Followers cannot see the board while it is private, and whether they are still attached when it returns is undocumented. Saves made while private sent no notification and added nothing to the Pin’s count; Pinterest documents no retroactive change.
Why can third-party apps only read public boards?
Because Pinterest serves public boards to everyone and private boards to nobody but you and your invitees. The mechanism is public: a widget system that lets any website embed up to 50 Pins of a board from nothing more than its URL, and APIs that, in Pinterest’s words, make public information available. An app that never signs in as you sees what a logged-out stranger sees.
VisionWall is one of those apps: a macOS menu-bar app that turns any public Pinterest board into a live, rotating desktop wallpaper. It reads the board through Pinterest’s public widget API, never signs in and holds no token, and new pins appear automatically. It cannot read a secret board or a private group board; that is Pinterest’s design, not one app’s limitation, and flipping a board public for as long as you want it on screen, then back, is fine. It costs $11.99 one-time, no subscription, no account, on macOS 13.3 (Ventura) or later. Rather keep the original private? The guide to making a Pinterest board public covers the cleaner route: a second, public board with only the images you want on screen.
Questions people ask about secret and public Pinterest boards
Are Pinterest boards public by default?
Yes. A new board is public unless you switch on Keep this board secret (web) or Make this board secret (iPhone and Android) when you create it. Existing boards flip from their settings, where the switch is called Make this board private.
Who can see my secret Pinterest board?
Only you and the people you invite. A secret board does not appear on your profile, in Pinterest search, in search engines or to third-party apps, and there is no unlisted state between secret and public.
Will my followers know if I make a board secret?
Pinterest documents no notification. Followers simply stop seeing the board, and the help pages do not say whether their follow is kept when the board becomes public again.
Can a wallpaper or gallery app read my secret board?
No. An app that does not sign in as you sees only what a logged-out visitor sees: public boards. Make the board public while you need it, or keep a separate public board with just the images you want to share.
Which Pinterest pages were checked for this post?
All read on 6 September 2026.