How to delete your Pinterest account
Pinterest is a visual discovery and bookmarking platform with around 500 million monthly users, focused on shopping, recipes, fashion, and DIY ideas. Pinterest stores all of your saved pins, the boards you built, search history, click history on outbound retailer links, interest signals derived from images you saved, and (for business accounts) ad campaign and conversion data.
Delete your Pinterest account, step by step
- 1Log in to pinterest.com on a desktop browser
- 2Click the chevron in the top-right > 'Settings'
- 3Open 'Account management'
- 4Scroll to 'Delete your data and account'
- 5Click 'Delete account'
- 6Pick a reason and click 'Send email'
- 7Open the confirmation email from Pinterest and click 'Yes, close account'
- 8Account is deleted 14 days later
What actually happens when you delete
Gets removed
- ✓Your profile, username, bio, and avatar
- ✓All boards and pins you created
- ✓Followers, following list, and group board memberships
- ✓Search history, interests, and personalization signals
- ✓Ad campaigns (active ones are stopped at deletion)
Stays behind
- ✗Pins others repinned from you stay on their boards
- ✗Outbound retailer click data Pinterest shared with merchants
- ✗Cached profile and pin images on Google Image Search for weeks
- ✗Records Pinterest retains for billing, ads, fraud, and legal compliance
- ✗Comments you made on others' pins may remain attributed to 'Pinterest user'
Before you delete
Cancel any Pinterest ads or Promoted Pin campaigns before closing — billing stops, but you lose access to performance reports. Pins that were repinned by other users remain on their boards and continue to drive traffic to the source URLs. Deactivation (a softer option) is on the same page and keeps your data while hiding your profile from public view.
Download your data from Pinterest first
Most platforms only honor a data-export request while the account is still active. Do this before you delete.
- 1Go to Settings > 'Account management'
- 2Click 'Request your data'
- 3Choose which categories you want (profile, boards, pins, search history, etc.)
- 4Click 'Send request'
- 5Pinterest emails a download link within roughly 30 days, often much sooner
Want to take a break instead? Deactivate
Deactivation hides your profile without permanently destroying it. Logging back in restores everything.
- 1Go to Settings > 'Account management'
- 2Click 'Deactivate account'
- 3Pick a reason and confirm
- 4Profile is hidden from search and public; reactivate any time by logging back in
If deletion fails — or you live in the EU, UK, or California
You have a legal right to request erasure of your personal data under GDPR (EU/UK) and CCPA (California). Use these official channels if the self-service flow doesn't work.
Pinterest deletion FAQs
How long does Pinterest take to delete an account?+
After you click the link in the confirmation email, Pinterest holds the account for about 14 days before permanent deletion. Logging back in during that window cancels the deletion.
Will my pins disappear from other people's boards when I delete?+
No. When someone repins one of your pins it becomes a separate object on their board. Those copies remain even after you delete your account. To remove the underlying image from Pinterest entirely you'd have to issue a DMCA takedown for each instance.
What's the difference between deactivating and deleting Pinterest?+
Deactivation hides your profile and boards from public view but keeps everything saved — you can come back any time. Deletion is permanent and erases your boards and pins after 14 days.
Can I delete just my pins without deleting my account?+
Yes. Open each board, hover a pin and click the ellipsis > 'Delete pin'. For mass deletion, use the bulk-edit view on a board to select multiple pins and delete them at once. Some third-party tools also offer bulk pin deletion via Pinterest's API.
Will my Pinterest business account behave the same way?+
Business accounts have the same deletion flow but lose access to analytics and active ad campaigns. Settle invoices in Ads Manager first and download any campaign reports you want.
Will Google still show my Pinterest pins after deletion?+
Cached image results can stay on Google Image Search for weeks. Once the pin URLs return a 404 you can submit each one to Google's Remove Outdated Content tool to speed up removal.
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