Quick answer: Import everything into PinSuite first by pasting your Pinterest profile URL, verify that the pin counts match, optionally export a local ZIP copy, and only then deactivate or delete your Pinterest account. Your collections stay safe in a library that exists independently of Pinterest, so leaving stops being a one-way door.
People leave Pinterest for different reasons. Some are tired of an algorithm that buries their own saves under suggested content. Some are cutting down on accounts and apps. Some had a scare with a suspended account and realized how fragile years of curation really are. Whatever the reason, the fear is always the same: the boards.
If you have been pinning for five or ten years, your account holds thousands of saved images organized into boards and sections that took real time to build. Deleting the account without a plan means deleting all of that work. This guide walks through the safe order of operations: back up first, verify second, leave third.
Before You Delete Anything
Do not open the account deletion page yet. Start with a quick inventory so you know what "everything" actually means for your account:
- List your boards, including secret ones. Go through your profile and write down every board name with a rough pin count. Secret boards are easy to forget because they do not show on your public profile, so check the hidden section at the bottom of your board list while logged in.
- Note collaborative boards you do not own. Group boards belong to their owner, not to you. If you leave Pinterest, you lose access to them, and any backup you make now is the only copy of those pins you will keep.
- Screenshot your profile for reference. Capture your board list with the pin counts visible. This becomes your checklist when you verify the backup later, and a record of board names and cover images in case you ever want to rebuild.
This step takes ten minutes and removes the most common regret: discovering weeks after deletion that one secret board or one group board never made it into the backup.
Why Pinterest's Own Export Isn't Enough
Pinterest does offer a data export. In your privacy settings you can request a copy of your data, and Pinterest emails you an archive within a few days. It is worth requesting, because it costs nothing. But understand what it is designed for.
The export exists for privacy compliance, not for backing up a visual library. In its current form it consists mostly of links and metadata: board names, pin URLs, account information, and activity records. It is not an organized download of your actual images at full quality. To turn it into a usable image library, you would need to visit thousands of URLs one by one and save whatever still loads.
That last part matters. A meaningful share of older pins point to sources that no longer exist: blogs that shut down, shops that closed, pages that moved without redirects. A link-based export cannot recover any of that. Dead links stay dead. The image may still render inside Pinterest today, but a list of URLs does not preserve it.
So request the official export for your records, then do a real backup that captures the images themselves.
Step 1: Import Your Boards into PinSuite
The fastest way to back up an entire account is by profile URL. Go to pinsuite.app, sign in, and paste your Pinterest profile URL (the one that looks like pinterest.com/yourusername). PinSuite shows a board picker listing every public board on the profile.
- Paste your profile URL into the save field
- Select the boards you want from the picker, or select all of them
- Start the import and let it run in the background
Each board is imported with its structure intact. Sections become sections, board descriptions are preserved, and every pin keeps its title, description, and original source link. Images come in at original resolution, not the compressed thumbnails you get from screenshots. Videos and GIFs are included. A typical board finishes in under a minute; a 500-pin board takes a few minutes.
If you would rather go board by board, the board downloader works the same way with individual board URLs. For a full exit, the profile import is the shortest path.
Step 2: Private and Secret Boards
The profile import covers public boards. Secret boards and boards shared privately with you are not visible to a profile URL, which is exactly the point of them. For those, use the PinSuite browser extension, available for Chrome and Firefox.
The extension works with your logged-in Pinterest session in the same browser. Any board you can see while logged in, the extension can import: secret boards, private group boards, everything. Your Pinterest credentials never leave the browser. PinSuite does not ask for your Pinterest password and never sees it; the extension simply reads the boards your own session can already access.
- Install the extension from the Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-ons
- Make sure you are logged in to Pinterest in that browser
- Open each secret board and save it through the extension
Check these against the inventory you made earlier. Secret boards are the single most common thing people lose when leaving Pinterest, purely because they forgot the boards existed.
Step 3: Verify and Export
Before touching any account settings, verify the backup. Open your PinSuite library and compare it against your board list from the inventory step. Check that every board is present, that the pin counts are in the right range, and that spot-checked pins open at full resolution with their source links attached.
Small count differences are normal. Pinterest counts some duplicate and unavailable pins that no tool can retrieve. What you are looking for is a missing board or a board that clearly stopped importing partway. If something looks short, re-run the import for that board.
Once the library checks out, consider exporting a local copy as well:
- ZIP gives you every image and video as files on your own drive, organized into folders that mirror your boards and sections. This is the copy that lives on your hardware and answers to nobody.
- CSV gives you a spreadsheet of the metadata: pin titles, descriptions, source URLs, board and section names. Useful for searching, sorting, and crediting sources later.
- JSON, HTML, and PDF exports are also available if you want machine-readable data, a browsable offline gallery, or a printable document.
To be clear about what is doing the safekeeping here: PinSuite keeps the library copy permanently. Saved content is never deleted on any plan, free or paid. The exports are not a requirement, they are extra peace of mind, and for a full account exit that peace of mind is worth the few minutes it takes.
Step 4: Deactivate or Delete
With your boards safe, you can leave on whatever terms you like. Pinterest gives you two options, and they are very different:
- Deactivate hides your profile, boards, and pins from everyone. Nothing is destroyed. Logging back in reactivates the account with everything as you left it. This is fully reversible.
- Delete permanently removes your account, boards, and pins. In Pinterest's current flow, deletion takes effect after a grace window (around two weeks at the time of writing) during which logging back in cancels the request. After that window closes, the data is gone and support cannot restore it.
Our advice: deactivate first. Live without Pinterest for a month. If you find you genuinely do not miss it, go back and delete for good. If you discover you still want it for search or discovery, reactivate with nothing lost. There is no prize for deleting quickly, and the deactivated account costs you nothing while you decide.
Either way, your backup does not care what you choose. The library copy in PinSuite and the ZIP on your drive are unaffected by anything that happens to the Pinterest account.
Life After Pinterest
Leaving Pinterest does not mean you stop collecting. It means your collection stops living inside someone else's algorithm. A few ways people set this up:
- Clip from anywhere. The PinSuite web clipper saves any image from any website straight into your library, so your collecting is no longer limited to what someone already pinned.
- Save Instagram finds. Paste an Instagram post or profile URL to bring those saves into the same library instead of leaving them scattered across another app.
- Archive whole pages. For recipes, tutorials, and articles where the surrounding text matters as much as the image, page archives keep a durable snapshot that survives even if the original site goes offline.
And there is a middle path: keep Pinterest for discovery only. Plenty of people keep a logged-out or minimal account for searching, then save anything worth keeping into their own library. Pinterest stays a search engine; your collection lives somewhere permanent. If you are weighing that option, our guide to Pinterest alternatives and the broader 2026 alternatives comparison cover the tradeoffs in detail.
Take your boards with you.
Import your whole Pinterest profile, verify it, export a local copy, and leave on your own terms. Free plan includes 50 saves. Pro is $6.99/mo or $49/year, and saved content is never deleted.
Get StartedFrequently Asked Questions
Will I lose my boards if I deactivate Pinterest?
No. Deactivating hides your profile and boards but does not delete anything. Logging back in restores the account as it was. That said, back up first anyway: deactivation protects you from your own decision, not from account suspensions, policy changes, or pins whose sources disappear while you are away.
Can I export Pinterest boards with images?
Not really through Pinterest itself. Pinterest's own data export is mostly links and metadata rather than image files. To export boards with the actual images, import them into PinSuite by profile or board URL, then export as ZIP. You get every image and video at original resolution, organized into folders by board and section, plus CSV, JSON, HTML, or PDF for the metadata.
What happens to my boards if I delete my account?
They are permanently removed once the deletion grace window closes, along with your pins and profile. Group boards owned by other people continue to exist, but your access ends and your contributions may be removed from them. This is why the backup comes first: after deletion is final, no support ticket can bring boards back.
Can I come back to Pinterest later?
If you deactivated, yes: log back in and the account reactivates with boards intact. If you deleted and the grace window has passed, you can only start over with a fresh account. Your PinSuite library is unaffected either way, so even a from-scratch return does not mean losing your collection; the pins you saved are still yours.