Download Pinterest Videos on a Mac or Windows PC

A desktop browser is the most comfortable place to save Pinterest videos. You have a real address bar, a keyboard, and a file system you can see. This article covers the desktop-specific parts: which URL to copy, where Chrome, Edge and Safari put the file, how to rename and play it, and how to get through a whole board's worth of pins without installing anything.

Copy the URL from the address bar

On a computer you do not need the share menu at all. Open the video pin so it takes over the page, click the address bar, and copy what is there. It will look something like https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1234567890123456789/, possibly with extra parameters after a question mark. The number in the middle is the pin ID and the only part KeepPin needs; everything after it is tracking and can stay or go.

Two mistakes are common here. The first is copying while a pin is open as an overlay on top of a feed: check that the address bar actually changed to /pin/ before copying. The second is copying a board or profile URL, which contains no pin ID and therefore cannot be downloaded. Anatomy of a Pinterest URL shows what each kind of link looks like and how to spot the difference in a second.

If you are on a regional Pinterest domain such as pinterest.co.uk or pinterest.de, the URL works as is. KeepPin recognises every country domain, and the media behind the pin is the same regardless of the page language.

Paste, parse, download

Open KeepPin's video downloader in a new tab, click the input, paste, and press Enter. KeepPin fetches the pin page and looks for the MP4 rendition Pinterest keeps on its CDN. When the preview appears, click the download button and the file is saved by your browser.

Nothing is uploaded from your machine, no account is created, and there is no daily cap. The download link itself is signed and lasts five minutes; after that KeepPin asks you to parse the pin again, which takes a few seconds.

The platform-independent version of these steps, plus pointers for phones and tablets, lives in the complete guide to saving Pinterest videos.

Where the browser puts the file

Every desktop browser has a default download folder, and every one of them can be told to ask instead.

Browser	Default location	Change it
Chrome	the Downloads folder in your user account	Settings, then Downloads; toggle "Ask where to save each file"
Edge	the Downloads folder	Settings, then Downloads; same toggle
Safari (Mac)	the Downloads folder	Safari, then Settings, then General, "File download location"

Turning on the ask-first option is worth it if you are downloading for a specific project, because you can route each file into the right folder as you go instead of sorting the Downloads folder later. Chrome and Edge also show a download panel (the arrow icon in the toolbar) where a completed file can be opened or revealed in its folder with one click.

Renaming the file

The filename KeepPin gives you is based on the pin, which is unique but not descriptive. Rename it as soon as it lands. On a Mac, select the file and press Return to edit the name; on Windows, select it and press F2. Keep the .mp4 extension intact, because both operating systems use it to decide which player opens the file.

A name that includes the subject, the creator's handle and the month you saved it will still mean something later, and the creator's handle is also what you need if you ever want to credit the video or ask permission to use it.

Playing the MP4

Nothing extra is required. Pinterest's video renditions are MP4 files with H.264 video, a combination that the built-in players on both systems handle. On a Mac, double-clicking opens the default player, and pressing the space bar in the file browser previews it without opening anything. On Windows, double-clicking opens the default video app.

If you want to understand what MP4 actually is, a container that wraps a video track and an audio track together, this guide to media containers is the clearest explanation around, and it also covers why the same file plays in a browser tab.

Why no software is needed

Older approaches to saving web video involved a desktop program that captured the stream or re-encoded the screen. Pinterest does not require any of that. The video already exists as a finished MP4 on Pinterest's servers; the app simply never shows you a link to it. KeepPin's job is to find that link and hand it to your browser, and the browser does the rest with the same download mechanism it uses for any file. There is no install, no updates to keep track of, and nothing running in the background after you close the tab.

Keyboard shortcuts that speed it up

Once you have done this a few times, the whole cycle can be driven from the keyboard. On a Mac use Cmd, on Windows use Ctrl.

On the pin page, press Cmd+L or Ctrl+L to select the address bar, then Cmd+C or Ctrl+C to copy.
Switch to the KeepPin tab with Cmd+Tab (Mac) or Ctrl+Tab (Windows) across browser tabs.
Click the input, press Cmd+V or Ctrl+V, then Enter.
Click download, then open the download panel with Cmd+Option+L in Chrome on a Mac, Ctrl+J in Chrome or Edge on Windows, or Cmd+Option+L in Safari.

Ten pins take a couple of minutes this way.

Saving a whole board by hand

KeepPin downloads one pin per request. There is no batch mode, so a board with thirty videos means thirty paste-and-click cycles. The most efficient approach is to open the board, middle-click each video pin to open it in its own tab, then work through the tabs in order: copy the URL, paste, download, close the tab. Because each download link expires after five minutes, do not parse ten pins at once and then start clicking; parse and download one at a time.

Keep a plain text file open with the pin URLs you have saved. It doubles as a record of where each video came from, which is what you will need for credit later.

Quality expectations

A desktop screen makes resolution differences more visible than a phone does. Most Pinterest videos are stored at 720p, and that is what you will get. A 1080p or 4K file appears only when the uploader provided one and Pinterest kept the larger rendition. No downloader can add pixels, and any tool that promises 4K for every pin is describing an upscale, not the original. What resolution Pinterest videos really are explains how to check a file's dimensions and what Pinterest does with uploads.

What the browser extension will change

KeepPin is building an extension for Chrome and Edge that puts a download button on the pin page itself, which removes the copy-and-paste step entirely. It is in development and not yet released, and it will use the same parser as the site, so the file you get will be identical. Until then, the workflow in this article is the desktop path. The KeepPin browser extension roadmap explains what it will and will not do, and the extension page will carry the release when it happens.