Resolution
Pinterest image downloader: why a saved image comes out small
The commonest complaint about saving from Pinterest is that the file arrives smaller than it looked. Nothing failed and no quality setting was applied. The browser saved the copy the page happened to be showing, and Pinterest keeps several.
Updated August 19, 20263 min read4 sections
One pin, several files
Every Pinterest image is stored on their content network at more than one width, each width at its own address. The grid shows a small one because a grid cell is small, the pin page shows a larger one, and behind both sits the file as it was uploaded.
/236x/
- What it is
- the grid thumbnail
- Format served
- JPEG, always
/474x/ and /564x/
- What it is
- the in-page copies
- Format served
- JPEG, always
/736x/
- What it is
- the large in-page copy
- Format served
- JPEG, always
/originals/
- What it is
- the file as it was uploaded
- Format served
- PNG, GIF, WebP or JPEG
Checked against 836 pins whose original is a PNG or WebP and 435 whose original is a GIF, with no exception found in either sample. Ask a size bucket for the original format and Pinterest refuses it; ask the same address for a JPEG and the image arrives.
That last column is the part worth carrying away. A size bucket is not the same photograph made smaller, it is a JPEG made from it. A transparent PNG loses its transparency there, and an animated GIF loses everything except one frame.
Why a right-click gives you a thumbnail
A browser can only save what the page loaded, and the page loaded whichever size fitted the space it had. Save from the grid and you get the grid's copy. This is the browser behaving correctly, which is exactly why it is easy to miss: nothing failed, you simply took the wrong copy.
Opening the pin first helps, because the pin page loads a larger one. It is still a copy rather than the original, and on a board of any size it is one manual save per pin.
What the highest available size really means
It means the file Pinterest itself serves from the originals address, taken unmodified. If that file is modest, that is the ceiling, and no downloader can move it.
Two things do not happen on the way out. Nothing is upscaled, because upscaling invents detail that was never photographed. Nothing is re-encoded, so a PNG stays a PNG and a GIF keeps its frames.
The ways files come out, and what each one is for
One export is not the same as another. Which one to ask for depends on whether you want the pictures, a folder you can browse, or the record of what was in it.
ZIP archive
- What it holds
- every image at the size Pinterest served
- Plan
- Every plan
Straight to a folder
- What it holds
- the same files written into a folder you choose, with an index beside them
- Plan
- Every plan
CSV, JSON or Markdown
- What it holds
- titles, links and sources, without the images
- Plan
- Every plan
PDF contact sheet
- What it holds
- one document to flip through and hand to someone
- Plan
- Lifetime
Common questions
- Can BulkoPin make a small image bigger?
- No, and it should not. Upscaling adds pixels by guessing what would have been there, which looks worse than the honest original at the size it exists in.
- Are the files modified on the way out?
- No. What lands in your folder is the file Pinterest served, with no watermark, no re-encoding and no change of format: a PNG arrives as a PNG.
- Where do the files actually go?
- Into the download folder you chose, on your own machine. The extension assembles exports inside your browser, so a board export never passes through a BulkoPin server. The single pin tool on this site is the one exception: it streams that one file through BulkoPin's media proxy so the download arrives with a proper filename, and the proxy keeps no copy of it.
Try it on a single pin.
Paste one public Pinterest link and see what comes back, at the size Pinterest serves. No account, nothing installed.