Protect Your Photos From Being Pinned On Pinterest

Ok, let me start out by saying that I absolutely LOVE Pinterest, and you all have my permission to pin anything you find on my blog to Pinterest. Seriously, pin away!

That said, there are some people who do not want their images pinned to Pinterest for one reason or another. Luckily for them, Pinterest has a very simple way to protect your photos from being pinned!

Tutorial: Prevent a photo from being pinned on Pinterest (useful for photos of family, copyrighted work, or if you're featuring another blogger's work and want to make sure they get the credit!)

Yes, I do see the irony in having that “Pin It” button right there, thanks 🙂

A lot of people use Pinterest, but I don’t think every person who uses Pinterest actually reads through the terms when they sign up. Cuz seriously, who does that?!

Anyway, the point is there was a bunch of hullaballoo about Pinterest’s terms recently (I’m sure you can Google it and find all the details; I’m not going to go into them here). Basically, people were very worried that once an image is pinned to Pinterest, they no longer have control over it.

Some of those people are professional photographers who wanted to retain rights to their photos, some of those people are moms who didn’t want pictures of their kids floating around the internet, some of those people are bloggers who feature other people’s work but want the credit (and pins) to go to the original source…

Whatever the reason, sometimes it just makes sense to keep some of your stuff off Pinterest. (Stacy from Not Just A Housewife had a crazy experience with a staged photo that was pinned and taken out of context a while ago)

So if you fall into any of those categories, there are two options for you.

By the way, if you’re reading this post on a mobile device, the code I share below might appear cut off by the edge of the screen. If this happens to you, just load this post on a full sized computer screen and it will display the full code!

1. Prevent a specific image on your site from being pinned to Pinterest

Before I pin anything from anyone’s blog, I always try to check their terms to see if they say anything about whether or not they would like their stuff pinned. And I see something like this ALL THE TIME:

“Please feel free to pin any images of projects you find on this site as long as the pin links back to my blog. However, please do not pin any images of my children, husband, or any other family members.”

Fair. Totally fair.

But if you’re worried that people won’t read your terms before pinning, or won’t respect your wishes, here’s a little piece of code to help you out.

nopin = "nopin"

Just add that code in the HTML of your post, inside your img tag, and that specific image will not be available for users to pin. When you are writing a new post or editing an old one, you can usually view the HTML of your post by clicking the HTML view tab. Then look for the img tag of your photo; it should look something like this:

<img style="border: 0px;" src="https://practicallyfunctional.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/signature2.png" width="206" height="74" nopin = "nopin" />

Just copy that nopin code in right before the closing bracket and your image will be protected!

If I used this code to create my signature image at the bottom of the post, it would make it so that no one can pin my signature from this post. The graphic image at the top of this post would still be available for pinning, as would everything else on my blog, but this signature would be excluded from possible pins.

NOTE: WordPress likes to try to do you a favor by pulling out any unknown code from your HTML whenever you switch from HTML view back to Visual view. This can be great in case you don’t close a tag properly, but it does mean that WP will pull out the nopin code. You have two options: Add the nopin code last, and schedule or publish right from the HTML view without switching back to the Visual view, or Ashley from Forgetful Mama told me about a WP plugin called Pinterest Repellent that will prevent this from happening. Just install that plugin and then you can switch between the views to your heart’s content and your nopin code will be safe!

2. Prevent every image on your site from being pinned to Pinterest 

If you don’t want anything from your website to show up on Pinterest ever, you need the following code:

<meta name="pinterest" content="nopin" />

You will need access to the HTML of your entire blog in order to do this, not just a single post. And you need to be VERY CAREFUL when editing HTML; you can do serious damage. You can access the HTML of your blog in a Blogger blog by going into Templates and clicking the Edit HTML button. You can access the HTML of your self-hosted WordPress blog by going into the Appearance tab on the side and choosing Editor, then selecting your Header file. Unfortunately, if you have a WordPress.com blog, you don’t have access to edit your HTML and must use the code in the previous example.

Once you have your HTML open, search for the following tag: </head>

Once you find that line of code, press return a few times to make a few empty lines just before it, and copy in the code above. Save your file, and you’re done!

If you can’t find your HTML files or the </head> tag, just shoot me an email through the Contact form; I can help!

If anyone tries to pin an image from your site they will see a message that says “This site doesn’t allow pinning to Pinterest. Please contact the owner with any questions. Thanks for visiting!”

If you want to customize the message that appears you can use the following code instead.

<meta name="pinterest" content="nopin" description="Sorry, no pinning of images on this site please!" />

Just change the description bit to whatever you want to say. Make sure to leave the quotes there though, they’re important!

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So there you have it. Next time you post an adorable photo of your baby you can protect it from being wildly thrown about the interwebs with this simple tip! (Anyone seen the “success kid” meme? That is someone’s kid!)

I don’t want to start any huge debates or anything, but what are your feelings about your images on Pinterest? Are all your images fair game, or now that you know you can exclude a few choice photos, will you be doing that from now on?

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 I link up at these awesome parties!

Jessi Wohlwend

I believe that anyone can do crafts and DIY projects, regardless of skill or experience. I love sharing simple craft ideas, step by step DIY project tutorials, cleaning hacks, and other tips and tricks all with one goal in mind: giving you the tools you need to “do it yourself”, complete fun projects, and make awesome things!

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Reader Interactions

  1. Raquel says

    12 years ago

    Hi Jessie! Great tutorial! Found you site on the Happy Hour party. I am your newest Twitter follower 🙂

  2. Christine says

    12 years ago

    This is a fabulous tip Jessi!! I totally don’t mind having my stuff pinned as long as I’m credited 🙂

    Thanks for sharing this at The DIY Dreamer.. From Dream To Reality!

  3. Claire says

    12 years ago

    Thanks for the information – ironically, I’ve pinned this for future reference!

    I certainly cringe when I see that someone has pinned someone else’s project from my site instead of going to the source. I might try this method to prevent people from selecting inspiration photos from other posts as the pin for one of my projects.

    • Jessi says

      12 years ago

      That’s a GREAT idea Claire, I didn’t even think of that. I was mostly thinking it would be useful for family photos or professional shots or something. I always leave a reminder in my Feature posts for people to click over and pin from the source, but just in case it’s super smart to set those photos to “nopin” so someone doesn’t accidentally pin them. Thanks for the idea!

  4. Shannah @ Just Us Four says

    12 years ago

    This is really great info for anyone looking to protect their photos! I, for one, don’t have a problem with people pinning my stuff. If I don’t want it spread about the interwebs, I don’t put it out there. However, I do have worries that, like Stacey, stuff maybe taken out of context or re-used in an inappropriate manner. If that happens, I may change my mind on people pinning my stuff and need to use this!

  5. Shari @ Turnstyle Vogue says

    12 years ago

    This is great. Thanks. I’m all for my photos being pinned, but have always cringed that my kids and other family could be pinned. I didn’t realize you could be “photo-specific.” I will do this from now on to those pictures 🙂

  6. Bethany says

    12 years ago

    Great info to have! Thanks! 🙂

  7. Marty Walden says

    12 years ago

    Thanks for commenting on my blog. I did link up with you this week. I know that the things I write for my blog and the pics I use are fair game for others. It’s just the way it is with our world. I don’t put things out there I don’t want others to see. I’m an adoptive mom and I’ve gotten a bit of grief and criticism over some of the things I’ve written. i just accept it because I put it out there. Unfortunately there are people who live to criticism viciously and they hurt others. it’s just a risk you take when you make things public.

    • Jessi says

      12 years ago

      Completely agree Marty! There’s really no excuse for people being jerks online and hiding behind their anonymity, but that’s sort of the risk you take with putting anything onto the internet. It becomes public, so you just have to be prepared, and it sounds like you are 🙂

  8. Stacy says

    12 years ago

    Thanks for sharing this. In my honest opinion I don’t see me using it, but feelings could change in the future. I honestly don’t put photos on my blog that I don’t want floating around out there. I try really hard not to open Pandora’s box, so to speak. Unfortunately, there are bad people everywhere who do terrible things to other people, their blogs and their photos. Such a sad world we live in. Sharing this on my fan page for others, great info like this needs to be passed on.

    • Jessi says

      12 years ago

      I think it’s really smart not to put photos up that you don’t want out there on the internet. This code works to stop someone from pinning something, but there’s nothing to stop someone from downloading the photo and re-uploading it on their own site or to Pinterest or whatever!

      • Gina Davey says

        7 years ago

        This is my problem…I just browzed Pinterest and bam..there was my artwork pinned by someone else…no credit or reference to me at all. Obviously downloaded and saved by the pinner..is there a way to add my details???

        • Jessi Wohlwend says

          7 years ago

          Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to add your information to something that someone else has pinned, even if it is your own work. 🙁 What you can do is file a copyright complaint with Pinterest and ask them to take it down; they are usually pretty good about responding and removing the pins if you can show that you are the original creator. You can find the form here: https://www.pinterest.com/about/copyright/dmca-pin/

  9. Katie says

    12 years ago

    Good to know! I’m terrible about this sort of thing; I don’t even know how to put a little watermark on my pictures, which I probably should do on at least some of them. Oops.

    That’s terrible what happened to Stacy, and I imagine I’ll feel differently once T-Rex is here. I guess. I’m more apathetic about the topic than I really ought to be.

    Thanks for sharing the code, though! ^_^

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