Design4 min read
How to Download a Pinterest Image in Full Size
Pinterest serves every Pin at four fixed widths and keeps the original under a path the interface never links to. Here is how to get the file as uploaded.
To download a Pinterest image at full size, take the Pin's image URL and swap the width directory in it for
originals. Pinterest serves every Pin from a path named after its width — /236x/, /474x/, /564x/, /736x/ — and keeps the file as uploaded under /originals/, which nothing in the interface ever links to.FreeMentioned in this article
Pinterest Image DownloaderEvery size of a Pin, including the original Pinterest never shows you.The five sizes a Pin is served at
| Path | Width | Where Pinterest uses it |
|---|---|---|
/236x/ | 236 px | The grid thumbnail |
/474x/ | 474 px | The feed |
/564x/ | 564 px | Related Pins |
/736x/ | 736 px | The Pin closeup — the largest fixed width |
/originals/ | As uploaded | Nowhere in the UI |
Because all five are the same path under a different prefix, moving between them needs no guesswork and no request:
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/ab/cd/ef/abcdef.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ab/cd/ef/abcdef.jpgThe original is frequently 1000×1500 or larger, since the recommended Pin size is 1000×1500 at 2:3. Every resized version has been through a second round of compression to produce it, so text and fine detail are softer in all four.
Right-clicking gets you the wrong file
Right-clicking a Pin in the grid saves the 236-pixel thumbnail. Right-clicking in the closeup saves the 736. Neither is the upload, and neither is obviously wrong until you put it in a document and the text goes fuzzy.
This is not Pinterest being obstructive — it is a sensible CDN doing its job. A phone loading a grid of forty Pins should not be made to download forty full-resolution images. The consequence is just that the version you can click on is never the version you want.
Download a Pinterest image by hand
- Open the Pin.
- Right-click the image and choose Copy image address.
- Paste it somewhere you can edit it. It will look like
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/….- Replace
736xwithoriginals. - Open the edited URL and save the image.
If the result is a 404, the Pin is a video Pin or an Idea Pin — those have no still to download and what you get is a cover frame at best.
What you may actually do with it
Most Pins point at somebody's product photo or blog image, and downloading one is not a licence to republish it.
Reference, moodboards, research and competitive analysis are ordinary uses of the web. Re-uploading somebody's photograph as your own Pin is not, and it is worth noting that re-pinning through Pinterest itself is the version that keeps the credit and the outbound link attached — a downloaded file carries neither, which is exactly why the original creator would rather you re-pinned.
Pinterest's own position on this is in its copyright policy.
Downloading images from other platforms
The same trick does not generalise — Pinterest's width-named paths are its own convention. What does generalise is the metadata: every platform publishes a post's largest image in its Open Graph tags so that link cards render elsewhere, and that copy is usually much larger than the one the feed shows.
The social media image downloader reads that tag for any public post, on any platform, including every slide of a carousel where the platform publishes them. Three other platforms keep a larger copy still, each behind its own convention — the guide to downloading social media images has the whole map.
Does this work with video Pins and Idea Pins?
You get the cover frame, not the video. These are image tools.
The original is smaller than 736 pixels.
Then the Pin was uploaded at that size.
/originals/ is the file as uploaded, so it is only larger than the renditions when the upload was.Can I download a whole board at once?
Not with this. A board downloader is a scraper, which is a different thing from reading one Pin's public metadata, and it is against Pinterest's terms.
Nothing came back for my Pin.
Pins on secret boards are not public, and Pinterest answers with a sign-in page for them. Check the Pin opens in a private browser window first.
Paste the Pin URL — or the
pin.it short link — into the Pinterest image downloader, which lists all five sizes at once.Put it to work
Tools for the job you just read about
Free to run, most of them without an account.
FreeImages & video
Pinterest Image Downloader
Every size of a Pin, including the original Pinterest never shows you.
Download →2 runs
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Jargon & Acronym Detector
The words that make sense to you and not to whoever just arrived.
Detect →
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Sentence Rhythm Analyzer
Why a draft with nothing wrong with it still reads flat.
Analyze →
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Crutch Phrase Finder
The phrases you use every time, which you are the last to notice.
Find →1 runs
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Weighted Character Counter
Why your editor says 240 and the post box says 287.
Count →1 runs
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Carousel Copy Splitter
A list, split into slides the words will actually fit on.
Split →
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