How to Make a Pinterest Board Private: Creating Your Secret Sanctuary

We spend so much of our lives sharing. We curate our digital spaces to reflect our aesthetics, our businesses, and our public passions. But sometimes, an idea is too fragile, too personal, or simply too unfinished to be placed on a public stage. You might be planning a surprise gift, gathering references for a deeply personal writing project, or simply collecting images that bring you comfort, without wanting the world to see or comment on them.

I know how important it is to have a space that belongs only to you. A quiet room where you can scatter your thoughts without worrying about how they look to anyone else.

If you are wondering how to make a Pinterest board private, you are simply asking for a key to your own digital room. Pinterest calls these "Secret Boards," and they are one of the most beautiful, respectful features the platform offers. Let's gently explore how to create these hidden sanctuaries, ensuring your inspiration remains safe and completely your own.

The Beauty of the "Secret Board"

Before we look at the technical steps, it helps to understand how Pinterest views privacy.

When you make a board "secret," you are wrapping a cloak of invisibility around it. It will not appear on your public profile. It will not show up in the home feeds of the people who follow you. The pins you save inside this board will never surface in Pinterest's search results.

It is entirely hidden. The only person who will ever see it is you, and anyone you specifically and intentionally invite to collaborate with you.

If you are using Pinterest to grow a business, you might think you need to leave every board open to the public. But as we discussed in our guide on how to use Pinterest, intentional curation is key. Keeping your messy, behind-the-scenes planning boards private actually helps keep your public-facing profile clean and focused for your audience.

How to Create a New Private Board

If you are starting a brand new project and want to ensure it is hidden from the very first moment, the process is incredibly simple. You can do this whether you are sitting quietly at your desk or holding your phone.

Creating a Quiet Space on Desktop

1. Open your world: Navigate to your Pinterest profile.
2. Start something new: Click the "+" (Plus) icon located near the right side of your screen, and gently select Board.
3. Name your project: A small window will appear asking for a title. You can name it whatever you like; no one else will see it.
4. Turn the key: Just below the name field, you will see a gentle toggle switch labeled "Keep this board secret." Click it so it turns on.
5. Establish the room: Click Create. You now have a completely private space to begin pinning.

Creating a Quiet Space on the Mobile App

1. Access your profile: Open your Pinterest app and tap your profile picture in the bottom corner.
2. Add a new board: Tap the "+" (Plus) icon in the top right corner and select Board.
3. Give it a name: Type in the name of your new collection.
4. Make it secret: Below the name, look for the toggle switch labeled "Make this board secret." Gently swipe it to the right.
5. Finalize: Tap Next or Create to finish.

(For any specific troubleshooting, you can always reference the Pinterest Help Center on Secret Boards).

How to Make an Existing Board Private

Perhaps you have a public board that has suddenly become deeply personal. Maybe you started planning a wedding openly, but now you want to keep the final dress choices a surprise. Or perhaps you are just feeling a little overwhelmed and want to pull some of your life back from the public eye.

You do not need to delete the board and start over. You can easily gently close the door on an existing board.

Tucking Away an Existing Board (Desktop & Mobile)

The steps for tucking an existing board away are beautifully consistent across both your computer and your phone.

1. Locate the board: Go to your Pinterest profile and find the board you wish to hide.
2. Open the editor:
   • On Desktop: Hover your mouse over the board and click the small pencil icon.
   • On Mobile: Tap to open the board, then tap the three dots (...) in the top right corner and select Edit board.
3. Find the privacy settings: Scroll down through the options until you see the Visibility section.
4. Hide the contents: Toggle the switch next to "Keep this board secret" so that it is activated.
5. Save your peace: Click Done or Save.

Instantly, the board will vanish from your public profile, safely tucked away in a private section at the very bottom of your own personal view. If you are also looking to completely remove outdated pins from your life, you might find our gentle guide on how to delete pins on Pinterest helpful for that deeper pruning process.

Sharing Your Secret (Collaborating Quietly)

Privacy doesn't always mean isolation. Sometimes, a secret is meant to be shared with just one other person—a partner you are planning a home with, or a creative collaborator you are building a brand alongside.

Pinterest allows you to invite specific people into your secret boards. When you open your private board, you will see an option to Invite collaborators (usually represented by a small plus sign next to your profile picture on the board).

If you invite someone, they can see everything inside and add their own pins, but the board remains completely invisible to everyone else in the world. It becomes a shared, quiet sanctuary.

From Private Ideation to Public Creation

Every great piece of public art, every successful business launch, and every beautiful blog post usually begins in a private, messy space. Secret boards give you the grace to be imperfect during your ideation phase.

But eventually, the time may come when you feel ready to share your finished work with the world. When you take the beautiful ideas you've cultivated in private and turn them into public blog posts, you want to ensure they find the right audience. If you need help gently introducing your work to the public, our thoughts on how to add keywords to Pinterest can guide you.

And when you are finally ready to distribute your finished writing, you shouldn't have to spend hours wrestling with graphic design.

Gentle TransitionRedol Recommendation

Share your finished work, effortlessly

Once your private ideas become public blog posts, Redol can quietly help you share them. We extract your best angles and automatically create beautiful Pinterest assets, letting you share your voice without the exhaustion.

Explore Redol Blog to Pinterest

Summary

Learning how to make a Pinterest board private is a beautiful way to establish boundaries and protect your creative energy. By simply navigating to a board's settings and toggling on the "Keep this board secret" option, you can instantly hide a collection from the public eye and search engines. These secret spaces are perfect for messy brainstorming, personal planning, or quiet collaboration with a trusted friend. Remember that you are always in control of your digital environment; you can choose to make a secret board public whenever you feel ready, or keep it quietly hidden forever. Honor your need for privacy, and allow your inspiration to grow safely in the dark before you bring it into the light.