This Friday quick tip includes some exciting news from Pinterest. Secret boards are now available!!!!
Starting November 8th, Pinterest gradually began rolling out the ability to make secret boards from your computer and your mobile devices. This is a feature that many users, including myself, have been hoping for.
Pinterest stated in their blog post today that they hope users will find secret boards useful during the holiday season. I know I will use it for gift planning. Remember the post about comparison shopping with Pinterest? Private or secret boards will make it even easier to do this holiday season.
How to Make a Secret Board
Secret boards will gradually become available to everyone. When It is available on your account, you will see this image on the top right corner of your page after you log in.
Click on Get Started and you will be taken to the bottom of your profile page to an area underneath your existing boards there, you’ll find the option to create up to 3 secret boards
When creating the secret board, you can name it and categorize it just the same as creating a regular board. Also included is the ability to make it a group board where other people you follow can pin to it too. For more information on group boards click here.
The secret board feature is also available on mobile devices.
If you are having trouble with creating secret boards on your mobile device, be sure you have updated to the most recent version of the app.
The pins you put on this board will not be visible in your feed or your follower’s feeds. They will not show up in searches or anywhere else on Pinterest, only on your secret board.
Notice above, that secret boards can be turned on and off. Be careful, once secret boards have been turned off, they will be public and can not be made private again. Existing boards can not be made secret. For more information check out the Pinterest support page about Secret Boards.
After your secret board has been created, there’s only one thing left to do….
According to the Pinterest blog, this is a test. It was not clear exactly what was being tested. Will we be able to create more secret boards? Could secret boards go away? Hopefully all goes well with the test and they are here to staty.
Aside from gift planning, secret boards can be handy for other things too
- Professional project planning
- Family photo sharing on group boards- (Keep a backup of photos just incase something changes with secret boards)
- A place to pin things you don’t necessarily want to make public- medical information found online, job hunting information, vacation planning
What do you think about Pinterest’s new secret boards? What other things do you think they would be useful for?
***Note*** Pinterest has updated their privacy policy with the addition of secret boards. You can read it here.
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38 Comments
Spotted this development in MediaBistro’s email this AM, and there was an email from Pinterest in my inbox too.
Thanks for this handy walk thru of this cool new feature!
[…] On a personal level, I know some of my friends and family aren’t on Instagram but, they are on Pinterest. I can make a secret board to share images with them there. (To learn more about secret Pinterest boards click here) […]
Can we make normal pin boards private? That would save me having to start all over again! 🙂
Julie,
Unfortunately you cant make public boards private. You can only make secret boards public.
[…] Secret boards quickly became a sacred place for brides to keep their wedding inspirations from prying eyes and for parents to plan family vacations. […]
I’m wondering if this would be a good place to “store” pins, to be released at strategic times? If you move a pin from a secret board to a public one, does it become visible?
Yes, moving a pin from a secret board to a public one does make it visible. But I would recommend repinning from someone else instead of form your secret board. This sends a notification to the person you repinned from which buIlds awareness of your account.
Thanks for your question Sara 🙂
I’m very new to Pinterest. Can you please tell me how to actually pin stuff from the internet to my own secret board/s?
Maryanne,
To pin to a secret board is just like pinning to any other board. T create the board, scroll to the bottom of you Pinterest account and you should see the option to add a secret board. Once it is created, it will appear in the list of all of your other boards to pin to. Secret boards have a lock icon next to them in the list.
Hope this helps. Thanks for stopping by
Is it possible to move a pin from an existing board to a secret board? I’m frustrated!!!
Hi Nicole,
You can’t move a pin form an existing board to a secret board but you can repin it to a secret board then delete the pin from the public board. However, this does not change any of the repins of the original public pin, they will still show that they were repinned from your account.
Thanks for your question 🙂
Help, suddenly on my IPAD I no longer see my Secret Boards as a choice to pin to yet I still do on my IPhone? What changed? And how do I fix it? Please help
I, also, cannot see my Secret Boards as a choice to pin to any longer. It happened after I updated the iPad app.
Please help!
I’m in the same boat. I can’t see my secret boards on the iPad app, which is highly frustrating bc I use it for my job! Is this a bug they’re going to fix?
I have the same problem as Sam and Glenda – really frustrating. Will there be any updates to fix this problem?
Me too :/
Same problem with not being able to pin to secret boards from iPad. Had to do my pinning from iPhone then they showed up as recently picked. Only way I can access them. Help!
Hi Joann,
I hope your secret boards have returned. It seems like updating the app is the key.
-Cynthia
Thank you for your helpful post. I received an invite to make my personal account a business account, I’m a consultant and so those lines do cross. I made the switch and also saw that I could make my boards secret, a iframe opens up with a menu “make secret” and toggle for yes or no. i chose yes and now I can’t access my personal boards. I see they are rolling out and things change rapidly. Sad that I’ve lost my shopping list.
I also have the same problem of my secret boards not being a choice on my iPad. Please fix this problem!
I couldn’t see pins on my secret board at first. Logging out and logging back in fixed the problem.
If you’re having trouble seeing pins on your secret board, try logging out of pinterest and logging back in.
Logging out and back in didn’t work for me
Logging out and back in on the iPad did not work for me either.
I also started a new secret board and that does not appear as a choice to pin to either.
Does Cynthia Sanchez answer this blog?
Hi Glenda,
I’m glad to hear your secret boards got straightened out.
So sorry for the delay in my response but I took some time off for a while to move my family from Texas to South Carolina. Thanks so much for stopping by 🙂
I checked my updates and did received an update this evening. It made my secret boards appear again as a choice to pin too. Yeah!
Thanks, Glenda. That worked for me
You are welcome Christy!
I have an android tablet and secret boards have gone. logging in and out did not work. choice to pin onto your secret boards is possible as they still appear in the list but are not visible from the visual board list for browsing. Uninstalling and re-installing the app did not work either. I left some feedback to their team. They got so much right and I can’t believe this is anything other than a technical glitch. at least I hope!
I also have an Android tablet and logging in/out didn’t work. m having the same problem. I don’t see them.
I’m also having the same problem. I cannot look at my secret boards although I can still pin to them. It is very frustrating that I cannot look at my secret boards. I tried logging out and back in and that didn’t work. I also checked for updates but I have the most recent update. Please tell me what I can do to see them again on my android.
Same for me on my android. I’ve logged out & back in with no luck. I have the most current version of the Pinterest app. Please help as I use those boards regularly with my phone.
Gaelle, Katie and Kelly what a bummer that you can’t access those boards form the Android app. Unfortunately I don’t have any suggestions beyond what you’ve already tried. With all of the updates that they’re making bugs and glitches are probably unavoidable. I hope they fix them soon.
Thanks so much for stopping by ladies 🙂
Hi
I downloaded Pinterest on my old mobile and created 2 secret boards (wedding ideas) but since getting my new phone and downloading Pinterest back on I can’t see my secret boards, only the public ones. Any idea how to get these back??
I just got the pinterest app on my tablet cause it kept taking me to the app page. And right away I had the same problem that Gaelle, Katie, & Kelly are having! I can pin to any of my secret boards but when I go to view my secret boards I can only find three. When I’m not using my app I can still view them all and it never gave me a limit on how many I could make. But the app says only 3!!
I have the same issue with my android app, can’t see my secret boards. The way around it is to click pins, then “Search your Pins” and there the secret boards will show up.
Apologies if you have already answered a similar question, but when you repin someone else’s pin onto a secret board you have created, is the original pinner notified that you have repinned their pin, as is the case with public boards?
I accepted an invite to a secret board. At first, other members were able to view my pins. Now, they receive notification that I pinned something, but it doesn’t show up on the board when they view it. I can see everyone’s pins to the board? What can we do so they can see my pins?