How to Find People on Pinterest
The search box is built to return images, which is why looking for a person in it so often returns nothing.
To find people on Pinterest, search the name and then switch the result type from pins to profiles. That filter is the step almost everyone misses, and without it Pinterest returns images rather than people.
On the web, the filter sits above the results. In the app, tap the search, enter the name, and choose the Profiles tab from the row of result types.
If you know their username, going straight to pinterest.com followed by a slash and the username is faster and always exact.
And if you want to find people you already know, the contacts route in settings matches your phone's address book against Pinterest accounts.
The reason the profiles filter is so easy to miss is that Pinterest is not really a social network, and its search reflects that.
On a social platform, search is for people. You type a name because you want an account, and accounts are the primary result. On Pinterest, search is for ideas. You type a name because you want pictures of a thing, and pins are the primary result.
So the default behavior is correct for the overwhelming majority of searches and wrong for yours. Typing a person's name returns pins whose descriptions happen to contain those words, which for a common name produces a page of unrelated images and the impression that the person is not on Pinterest at all.
This also explains why Pinterest profiles are hard to find by name even once you have switched the filter. The profile search matches against the display name and username, and a profile with a business name, an aesthetic phrase or no real name at all — which describes a large share of them — is simply not findable by the person's actual name.
In that case the username route is not an alternative. It is the only route.
Switching the search from pins to profiles
Type the name in the search box and press enter. The results page opens on pins.
Above the grid, Pinterest offers result types. On the web these appear as a dropdown or a row of buttons; in the app they are tabs. Choose Profiles.
The results now show accounts, with their display name, username, follower count and a few recent pins.
If nothing relevant appears, try the username rather than the real name, and try it without spaces. Pinterest usernames cannot contain spaces, so a person whose display name is two words often has them joined or separated by an underscore.
Going straight to a profile URL
Every Pinterest profile lives at pinterest.com followed by a slash and the username. Nothing else is required.
This is the fastest route when you have the username from somewhere else — a link in somebody's Instagram bio, a website footer, an email signature.
It is also the only reliable route for an account whose display name does not resemble the person's name.
If the URL returns an error, the username is wrong or the account has been deleted. Pinterest does not redirect old usernames, so a changed username breaks every link that pointed at it, which is worth knowing before you change your own.
Finding people from your contacts
In settings there is an option to find friends or connect contacts, which matches your phone's address book against Pinterest accounts.
It asks for contacts permission, and that is a real privacy decision — you are handing over other people's phone numbers and email addresses, not only your own information.
It works best for accounts registered with the same email or number you have for that person, which in practice means it finds a modest fraction of the people you know.
The same settings area controls whether others can find you this way, which is the setting to change if you would rather not be matched.
Finding people through their pins
Often the easier path, because Pinterest indexes pins far better than profiles.
If you know what somebody publishes, search for that subject, find a pin that is theirs, and click through to the profile from the pin.
The pin page shows who saved it and who created it, and the creator link goes straight to the account.
This is the reliable way to find businesses and creators whose profile name you do not know but whose work you would recognize. It is also how most following on Pinterest actually happens: people find the pin first and the person second, which is the reverse of every other platform.
Controlling whether people can find you
The relevant settings are in privacy and data, and there are two worth knowing.
A setting controls whether search engines outside Pinterest can index your profile. Turning it on hides you from Google, which matters because for many accounts a web search is how strangers arrive.
Another controls whether your account can be matched from contacts and whether Pinterest can use your information to suggest you to others.
There is no fully private profile in the sense Instagram has one. Boards can be made secret individually, which hides their contents, but the account itself remains visible. If you want work hidden, the secret board is the control, not the account setting.
Why a profile is only findable once it has signal
Even with the right filter, Pinterest's profile search ranks results, and an account with nothing behind it ranks below accounts with the same name that do.
The inputs are the obvious ones: how many followers, how much is published, how much of it has been saved by other people.
That produces the familiar opening problem. A new account is hard to find, being hard to find means few people follow it, and few followers means it stays hard to find. Nothing in the system breaks that loop on its own, because Pinterest has no follower suggestions pushing new accounts at anybody.
Which is why growth here starts with the pins rather than the profile. A pin that gets saved is findable immediately, regardless of who published it, and the profile gets discovered through it afterwards.
Questions people ask about finding someone on Pinterest
Why does searching a name only show pictures?
Pinterest search returns pins by default. Switch the result type to Profiles, which is a filter above the results on the web and a tab in the app.
How do I open a profile if I know the username?
Go to pinterest.com followed by a slash and the username. It is exact and always works, which the name search does not.
Can I find Pinterest friends from my phone contacts?
Yes, through the find friends option in settings. It requires contacts permission, which hands over other people's details as well as your own.
Why can I not find someone I know is on Pinterest?
Usually because their display name is a business or aesthetic phrase rather than their real name. Profile search matches the display name and username, so neither will contain what you are typing.
Can I hide my Pinterest profile?
Partly. A setting stops search engines indexing it and another stops contact matching, but there is no fully private account. Individual boards can be made secret.
Does changing my username break old links?
Yes. Pinterest does not redirect from an old username, so every link pointing at the previous address stops working.
Keep reading
- followers on a Pinterest profile — Profile search ranks by what is behind the account, which is the loop a new one cannot open on its own, and followers on a Pinterest profile is aimed at it.
- why pins get found before profiles do — Discovery here runs backwards compared with other platforms, and why pins get found before profiles do explains how to use that.
- what a pin accumulates over time — An account is found through its best pins, which is also what a pin accumulates over time and why deleting them costs more than it looks.