image-archive
A visual-discovery service with billions of pinned images, which often preserve copies of pictures whose original sources have vanished. There is no public image-search API, the official one is OAuth-gated for approved business apps, and casual browsing hits login walls, so use it by direct link. Occasionally useful for finding a surviving copy of an image lost from its original site.
No programmatic check, opens the archive’s own search.
Why it’s useful & how it works
Occasionally useful when you are trying to track down a surviving copy of an image that has disappeared from its original source, since Pinterest's pinning behaviour means copies can persist long after the original page is gone. There is no public image search API, and browsing the site without logging in is limited. Echo links you directly, and from there you can search by keyword or topic if you have an account. Think of it as a supplementary lead rather than a primary archive.
What’s inside
Billions of saved pins accumulated across the platform's lifetime, with users saving approximately 1.5 billion pins weekly as of 2025.
API access
https://api.pinterest.com/v5/ (OAuth, business-app approval; no public image search)
An API key is required (usually free); see the endpoints above for where to get one.
What we measured
Our own probes, not the archive’s own claims. Re-run periodically; every reading below is dated.
Reachability
- Direct request
- Responded HTTP 200 903 ms
- Through a datacenter proxy
- Responded HTTP 200 1.1 s
- API, direct
- Blocked HTTP 401 575 ms
- API, through a proxy
- Blocked HTTP 401 620 ms
Reachability measured 2026-08-22.
Access
May be geo- or IP-blocked from some networks.