Media types
Pinterest video downloader: video, GIF and Idea pins behave differently
In a board these sit next to each other and look like variations of one thing. They are not. Each is stored differently, each fails differently, and knowing which one you are looking at explains most of the surprises.
Updated August 19, 20263 min read4 sections
Four things wearing the same shape
A rectangle with a play affordance on it can be any of four things, and what an export writes depends entirely on which one it is.
Video pin
- What it is
- a video file with a still frame standing in front of it
- What an export writes
- the video file
GIF
- What it is
- an animated image, closer to a picture than to a film
- What an export writes
- the animated file, untouched
Carousel
- What it is
- several images inside one pin
- What an export writes
- every slide, not only the cover
Idea pin
- What it is
- a sequence of media grouped into one card
- What an export writes
- each piece it holds
The poster-image trap
Every video pin carries a still frame that stands in for it before playback. When the video itself cannot be resolved there are two ways to behave: say so, or hand over the still and say nothing.
BulkoPin used to do the second one on Idea pins. You asked for a video, received an image, and nothing explained why. That was found, fixed and instrumented, and the case is now reported rather than substituted.
GIFs and the quality question
A GIF is a sequence of frames in a container built for images, which is why treating it as a picture and reducing it can flatten it into a single frame. That is not a smaller GIF, it is a still.
Animated files are therefore left alone rather than optimised. It is also why a GIF has to come from the originals address: Pinterest's smaller sizes are always served as JPEG, and a JPEG cannot be animated.
When a video cannot be taken at all
Some videos are published only as an adaptive stream: not one file, but a playlist of small segments that a player stitches together as it goes. Assembling those is a different problem from downloading a file.
Common questions
- Why did I get an image when I expected a video?
- Almost always the poster frame: the video could not be resolved and its still stood in. That case is reported now rather than substituted silently, so an export that hits it tells you.
- Do multi-image pins download every slide?
- Yes. A carousel used to yield only its cover, which is one file out of several. Every slide is exported now, and each one counts as its own file.
- Can I download a video that I cannot see?
- No. The extension works inside your own session and reaches what that session already reaches. A video you cannot open in your browser is not available to it either.
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.