Pinterest for n8n

Pull public Pinterest data into your n8n workflows — pins, profiles, boards and keyword search — without an API key or an approved developer app.

The node runs Apify Actors published by thenetaji. The scraping happens on Apify's infrastructure; the rows land in your workflow as ordinary n8n items.

What you can build with it

• Track how often a competitor's pins get saved
• Pull every pin from a board into a content calendar
• Research a niche by searching pins and enriching them with the pinner's profile
• Watch a profile's boards and alert when a new one appears

Install it

In n8n, go to Settings → Community nodes → Install and enter:

n8n-nodes-pinterest-apify

See n8n's installation guide for self-hosted and Cloud specifics.

Requirements

• A self-hosted n8n, or n8n Cloud with community nodes enabled
• Node.js 20.15 or newer (self-hosted)
• A free Apify account for the API token

Connect your Apify account

1. Sign in to the Apify Console.
2. Open Settings → Integrations and copy your Personal API token.
3. In n8n, add a new Apify API credential and paste the token into API Key.

On n8n Cloud you can skip the token: set the node's Authentication to OAuth2, add an Apify OAuth2 API credential and click Connect my account.

The same credential works for every Apify node in this repo, so you only enter the token once.

Your first run

1. Add a Manual Trigger, then a Pinterest node.
2. Set Resource to Search and Operation to Search Pins.
3. Type a keyword into Search Keywords, set Limit to 10.
4. Click Test step.

What each operation does

| Resource → Operation | What comes back | | --- | --- | | Pin → Get Details | One pin with its save count, comment count and media | | Profile → Get Profile | One public profile, optionally with its boards attached | | Profile → Get Boards | One row per board, for one or more profiles | | Board → Get Pins | One row per pin, for one or more boards | | Search → Search Pins | One row per matching pin or video pin |

Pin → Get Details and Profile → Get Profile take a single target per input item, because they run the All-in-One Pinterest Actor. Get Boards and Get Pins take a list — one entry per line. To fetch many pins, feed the node many input items; n8n runs it once per item.

Settings, in plain terms

Targets

Pins accept a numeric ID, a full pinterest.com/pin/…/ URL, or a pin.it short link. Profiles accept a bare username or the full profile URL. Boards accept a numeric ID or the full pinterest.com/owner/board-slug/ URL — a numeric ID is faster, because a URL needs a lookup first.

Return All and Limit

Get Boards, Get Pins and Search Pins have the usual n8n pair. The limit applies per target: with two boards and a limit of 50, you get up to 50 pins from each.

The "Add …" toggles

Each one attaches extra data at the cost of extra requests:

• Add Pin Details — save count, comment count and media for every pin found; one request per pin
• Add Pinner Profile — the profile of whoever saved each pin, under pinner_profile; one request per distinct account
• Add Boards — the profile's boards, under boards
• Add Board Pins — each board's pins, under board_pins
• Add Cover Pin Details — full detail for each board's cover pin, under cover_pin_details

Max Boards per Profile and Max Pins per Board cap the two paginating add-ons and only appear once their toggle is on. Leave them at 0 to keep going until nothing is left — which on a large profile is a lot of requests, so set a number when you are exploring.

Options

Actor Memory raises the memory for the run. Poll Timeout is how long the node waits for the run to finish — the run keeps going on Apify's side even if the node stops waiting, and the error message links to it.

Recipes

Board to spreadsheet

Pinterest (Board → Get Pins) → Google Sheets → Append.

Niche research with pinner profiles

Pinterest (Search → Search Pins, Add Pinner Profile on, Limit 25) → Filter on follower count → Google Sheets. Start with a small limit; the add-on costs one request per account.

Watch a profile's boards

Schedule Trigger → Pinterest (Profile → Get Boards) → Compare Datasets against yesterday → Slack.

Common questions

Do I need a Pinterest developer account? No. Everything here reads public pages.

Why did I get nothing back? Secret boards, deleted pins and private or suspended profiles return no rows. The node logs a warning with a link to the run so you can check.

Can I fetch several pins at once? Not in one call — Get Details takes one pin per item. Feed it a list of items instead (a Split Out or a Google Sheets read upstream) and it runs once per pin.

Can I use this as an AI tool? Yes — the node is exposed to n8n's AI Agent as a tool.

What it costs

Apify's free tier includes $5 of platform credit per month. Runs are billed by compute time, so the levers that matter are Limit and the Add … toggles. Start with small limits and the toggles off.

For developers

pnpm install          # install dependencies
pnpm run build        # compile to dist/
pnpm run lint         # n8n community-node lint
pnpm test             # unit tests for the pure helpers
pnpm run dev          # run a local n8n with this node linked

The Actor mapping lives in nodes/Pinterest/operations.ts as a plain registry: each operation names its Actor, the fields it forwards, and any input it pins itself. Pin and profile detail pin a scraperType on the All-in-One Actor; the other three operations call their standalone Actor directly. The node's displayOptions are derived from that registry, so the UI cannot drift out of step with the Actors.

Links

• Actors on Apify
• Repository
• Issues
• n8n community nodes

Version history

• 0.3.0 — added OAuth2 sign-in, so n8n Cloud users can connect their Apify account with a button instead of pasting a key.
• 0.2.0 — the Apify credential field is now API Key, matching the shape Apify publishes, so one saved credential works across every Apify node. Re-enter your token if you saved it under 0.1.x.
• 0.1.1 — documentation only: Apify links are now referral links.
• 0.1.0 — first release: 5 operations across Pin, Profile, Board and Search.

Apify links in this README are referral links.

License

MIT