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=> Update: As of February 2017, Pinterest has introduced new tools to sort your boards automatically. Read about it at:
Pinterest Announces New Tools to Arrange Your Boards and Pins
If you’ve been on Pinterest for a while you may have created quite a few boards. Your home page might be a jumble of boards in chronological order based on when they were created. You can (and should) take the time to organize them, but if you have a lot of boards that can take a lot of time.
Now you can sort your Pinterest boards in one click with a Chrome extension called Pinterest Sort. This extension lets you arrange your Pinterest boards with one click, saving you time and frustration by having to drag and drop your boards in order.
Pinterest Sort helps you organize your boards logically, instead of chronologically, so you can help visitors to your Pinterest page find your boards.
Pinterest Sort lets you arrange your boards:
Alphabetically by Board Names —
- A to Z or
- Z to A
By Quantity of Pins —
- Most to least or
- Least to most
Note: I found Pinterest Sort to work best for sorting boards alphabetically instead of numerically.
Using Pinterest Sort
Pinterest Sort is available for Chrome and is available in English and Spanish.
To get started, go to the Chrome Store and download the Pinterest Sort extension for free:
Pinterest Sort in Chrome Store
[note] You may need to close Chrome and re-open it if Pinterest Sort doesn’t work for you after you add it to Chrome.[/note]
When you visit Pinterest you’ll see the Pinterest Sort icon in your address bar at the top of your screen.
Click on the icon to open the extension. You have your choice of how to arrange your boards and whether you want to arrange both public and private boards.
Sorting Others’ Boards
You can also use Pinterest Sort to sort boards of accounts you visit on Pinterest. Sort them to make finding the board you’re looking for easier.
You can choose how you want them arranged: alphabetically or by quantity of pins. This arrangement only affects how you view the boards, you’re not rearranging anyone’s Pinterest boards permanently.
Here’s an example of how I used Pinterest Sort to arrange Harleena Singh’s Pinterest boards alphabetically Z to A:
Tips for Arranging Your Boards
Your top row of boards is prime real estate and should be treated with care. Be sure to put your most important boards in your top row, regardless of how they would be arranged alphabetically or by number of pins.
Put the boards you want noticed most in the top row after you’ve arranged your boards using Pinterest Sort.
[tip]Don’t Miss => How to Arrange Your Pinterest Boards in 1 Easy Step! to learn how to arrange your Pinterest boards manually. [/tip]
Troubleshooting
• If you get an error message, such as “failure to fetch board ids” or your boards aren’t arranged, refresh your page and try again.
• Be sure to close and re-open Chrome after you’ve downloaded the Pinterest Sort extension.
• Make sure you only have Pinterest open in one tab. If you have Pinterest open in multiple tabs the extension may not work properly.
• Pinterest board names sometimes start with characters that throw off the alphabetical arrangement. You may have to arrange these manually or re-name them to eliminate the characters in the board names.
Your Thoughts
Are you excited to find a Chrome extension that automatically arranges your Pinterest boards? How do you like to arrange your boards — alphabetically or by quantity of pins? Which Pinterest Boards do you like to put in the top row of your Pinterest Page?
Share your thoughts with us in the Comments section below!
Note: I am away from The Wonder of Tech rearranging Pinterest boards until Monday, August 24. I will try to respond to all comments when I return or finish arranging everyone’s Pinterest boards, whichever comes first.
Hi Carolyn. Woo-hoo! I got here first! Sorry – just spent a few days with my grandchildren. I couldn’t believe it when they were arguing who was going to be first to TAKE A BATH.
I avoided Google Chrome for a long time because it was so minimalist. Now it’s my default browser and I love extensions. I have the Pin extension, but this looks like another great one to add. Can’t wait to try it.
All the best,
Leslie
Hi Leslie, Wow, you must have a great secret for getting your grandkids to want to take a bath! That’s amazing!
You’re right, Chrome is minimalist so if you don’t want a lot of extensions, you don’t have to use them. But once you get started with them you can see how very useful they can be. You can always get rid of any that don’t work for you. I keep finding new ones that are share-worthy and Pinterest Sort is definitely one of those!
Hi Carolyn,
Good to be here after a while 🙂
How could I not come over to thank you for mentioning my Pinterest account as an example here – sorry, I just read the post now. You know I always keep your informative post aside if I’m a little busy and this was a pleasant surprise indeed!
I hadn’t heard of Pinterest Sort so I’d surely be trying it out. I like the fact that you can arrange the board of others to suit your own viewing. I wonder though that does that remain the same way if we visit the same persons profile again later. Like, if you visit my profile later, would you see it from Z to A each time? Just thinking… 🙂
Thanks for sharing this with us, and it feels wonderful to peep into the blogosphere for a while. Off again to work on some of the new projects in hand. Take care my friend, and hope you enjoy your little break as well. 🙂
Hi Harleena, So wonderful to “see” you again after our busy summer! I’ve been eagerly anticipating your return this fall to see what you have in store for us. I know that the debut of your new blog will be a huge hit!
Yes, you make such good use of Pinterest that I thought your account would be an excellent example of how to use Pinterest Sort to view others’ accounts.
Great question about returning to an account after you’ve sorted them using Pinterest Sort. I tested this using your account (again) and am pleased to report that Pinterest Sort does in fact save the sorting for the next time you visit that account. That is unless, of course, you’ve sorted your boards numerically from least to most, which I doubt you’ve done.
Enjoy the rest of your summer and I look forward to seeing you again soon!
Another great source of information, thanks, Carolyn, and happy rearranging your boards!
I did not know about being able to sort other people’s boards, might come in handy.
I arrange my boards according to what I consider important (might have to rethink this strategy!), those boards are most likely to have more pins than others and cover the content interest of my followers.
Hi Barbara, You’re right, you may want to re-think your Pinterest strategy for a couple of reasons. First, as the number of boards you have increases, you may have difficulty finding the one you want. Second, you want to help others who visit your account find boards easily. If they’re not using Pinterest Sort to arrange your board, they may not be able to find the board they’re looking for on your account.
You can arrange your boards alphabetically, then use the top row for your most important boards. Just an idea!
I am a great fan of Pinterest and since I am currently using Chrome so I am definitely going to take advantage of Pinterest Sort extension, moreover it is completely free to use. Love the arrangement of Harleena Singh’s board and your ideas about sorting boards!
Hi Vanessa, Yes, if you’re a fan of Pinterest and Chrome then Pinterest Sort will be a very useful tool for you! You can sort your Pinterest boards quickly and sort the boards of other accounts you visit.
Harleena makes very effective use of Pinterest so I knew she would be a great example for this article. I’m so glad you enjoyed this!
pinterest is a great source of traffic to a blog and you shared a nice information about this and useful for people like me
Hi Ramsai, Yes, Pinterest sends a ton of traffic to The Wonder of Tech, but I would be a big fan of Pinterest even without my blog. I use it to bookmark and organize articles on all sorts of topics.
I’m so glad you found this article useful. Thanks for your visit and taking the time to comment.
Carolyn,
Chrome extensions are so useful and too many chrome extension can eat up your ram on the computer. Observed it? 🙂 Still there is another chrome extension to keep it check. The extension name is “the great suspender” so that it makes the chrome less resource hungry.
Cheers
Suresh
Hi Suresh, Excellent point. If you see that your Chrome is slowing down because of too many tabs you can always use Pinterest Sort to sort your boards then delete it. You wouldn’t be able to sort others’ board on Pinterest but maybe others will use Pinterest Sort to sort their boards automatically!
Yes, I’m a big fan of The Great Suspender. See my review of this excellent Chrome extension: The Great Suspender: Tame Your Terrible Tabs!
Has anyone bothered to create an add-on or function that allows you to sort your FOLLOWERS and FOLLOWING sections alphabetically??
I’ve pretty much stopped using Pinterest due to lost interest from the idiocy of the followers and following sections constantly changing and becoming jumbled. I simply can’t waste time on such trivial matters. I have since returned to Photobucket, Flickr, Viewbug and others. At least they are organized, well, better than Pinterest. Oh, and I can upload “batch” images as well.
So, I’ll stay with the “others” until someone at Pinterest figures out the alphabet and batch uploading. I also know of at last two photography companies that have stopped using Pinterest for these, and other reasons.
Not sure if you have anyone’s “ear” at Pinterest, however, you might want to nudge them a little if you do. Thanks
Hi Alexa, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech. Excellent suggestions for Pinterest. I don’t know if anyone from Pinterest is reading The Wonder of Tech, but they certainly should!
What I would like to see from Pinterest is a way to invite people to group boards more easily. I would like to be able to see the followers of my group boards and invite them to join. But that’s not an easy process now.
That being said, I’m still a big fan of Pinterest. I use it for search, inspiration, organization and discovery. Pinterest is also the second biggest source of traffic to The Wonder of Tech after Google.
I don’t use Pinterest to organize my photos though. I use Flickr and Google Photos for that. Perhaps Pinterest doesn’t see itself as a photo storage and editing site as much as a social media site, which may be why batch photos aren’t available. Or maybe batch photos will come in a future update.
Thanks for sharing your insights and wish list with us, Alexa!