Are you organizing your Pinterest boards and need to figure out how to merge them?
This article will give you step-by-step instructions on how to merge Pinterest boards and sections within Pinterest boards.
You will also find out what are the benefits and potential issues of merging boards, and find answers to the most common questions.
PLEASE NOTE: Before you merge the boards please read the whole article first, as it might not be the best solution for your account.
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Merging Pinterest Boards: Quick Guide
Aspect | Details |
---|---|
Merging Boards | Combines two Pinterest boards into one. Merged board becomes a section board in the main board. |
Benefits | Practical way to organize an account, specially a personal one. Not recommended in most cases for bloggers. |
Moving Pins | Pins can be moved to other boards individually or in bulk without merging boards. |
Before Merging | Consider if merging is the best solution as it can’t be undone. |
How to Merge | Decide two boards to merge, select the parent board, use the ‘Merge’ option, and confirm. |
Unmerging Boards | Merging cannot be undone. A new board can be created, and pins can be manually transferred back. |
Merging Sections | Sections within boards can also be merged, but only with other sections. |
Merging Pinterest Boards: What Does it Mean?
So what actually happens when you merge Pinterest boards?
You are essentially combining two boards into one. So one of the boards becomes a section in the main Pinterest board.
What is a section board?
You can think of a section board as a way to organize your Pinterest board into different sub-categories.
For example, in case of a travel blog, you could have a main board called Europe Travel, and within that section boards called Italy Travel, Spain Travel, Greece Travel and so on.

Should You Merge Pinterest Boards at All?
The first question you should ask yourself before you hit the merge button is this: is this the best way to organize my Pinterest account?
Here are three important factors to consider:
First, Merging boards cannot be undone.
If you change your mind later, you might have to move the pins to the new board manually one by one.
Second, if you’re using your Pinterest account to drive traffic to your blog, you need an SEO-optimized Pinterest profile.
Section boards inside the merged board cannot be optimized using board descriptions, so you’re losing out on potentially relevant topic clusters within your niche.
And last, if you’re using a scheduling tool like Tailwind, you cannot pin images to a section board. It’s impossible. You will only be able to pin to the main merged board, but not sections inside it.
BONUS TIP: If you’re main goal is just to move individual pins to a different board, instead of the whole board, check out the tutorial for this further down in the article.
Best Practice: When to Merge Pinterest Boards
I’m very familiar with merging of boards as I do that regularly as part of my Pinterest account audit and also for all of my Pinterest management clients.
There are only three cases when merging Pinterest boards is a good option.
Case 1: Personal Profile Clean-up
If you’re only using Pinterest for some business or blogging research and don’t plan to drive traffic with it, merging boards is a good way to keep your profile optimized.
In this case, you’re also probably doing a lot of manual repins or pins, so you wouldn’t need to worry about using a publisher like Tailwind.
Case 2: Redundant Board
If you’re using Pinterest as a traffic source for your blog, you can still merge Pinterest boards if they are redundant to your niche.
For example, if your travel site is about Italy, you might have a Pinterest board called ‘Restaurants in Rome’.
That happens to be a popular topic that drives traffic to your article about the best restaurants in Rome, but you have no way to add more content to that specific board.
If you’ve been to Rome only once and don’t plan to visit more restaurants, it may be difficult for you to come up with new content to add there in the future.
In this case, it makes sense to merge your ‘Restaurants in Rome’ board with ‘Rome Travel Tips’ board, so then it becomes a section board within the main board about Italy.
This way you keep the traffic coming to the original article about restaurants, and keep your profile more organized and active by including it in your main big board.
Case 3: Rebrand
The last case scenario, which I am personally familiar with, is a rebrand.
In blogging terms, that would mean changing your niche and narrowing down your niche.
If you’re narrowing down the focus of your account, which I highly recommend, merging the boards into broader topics makes a lot of sense.
It will allow you to keep your traffic, but make space for optimizing your account for new focus and content.
How to Merge Pinterest Boards: Step-by-Step Tutorial
1. Select Which Boards to Merge
Select which two boards you want to merge, and which one of those you want to be the main board and which one will be a section in the main board.
2. Click Edit and Select Merge
Open the board and click on the three dots under the board title.
From there select the merge option.


3. Choose the Board into Which to Merge
You will get a notification that you’re about to combine board.
This is a new wording as previously they used ‘merge boards’ consistently even in this window.
The notification almost sounds like you’re deleting content, but that’s not the case.
Choose a board from the list and click done at the bottom of the window.

What are the Disadvantages of Merging Pinterest Boards?
The problems with merging Pinterest boards are those I already mentioned earlier, namely:
- No way to optimize board description for SEO
- Inability to pin directly to the section from Tailwind
- Inability to reverse merging boards
Other Ways to Organize Pinterest Boards
If you’re organizing your Pinterest profile, here are a few other things you can do to keep it organized.
1. Moving Pins from One Board to Other
If you only want to move specific pins from one board to another, without merging them, that’s pretty easy to do:
- Open the board from where you need to move pins
- Click on the organize button
- Select the pins you want to move – you have a button to select all as well
- Click on the first icon at the bottom of the screen which says ‘move’
- Choose a board from the list where you want to move your pins
What happens when you move pins from one board to another?
These pins will be only available in their new location, in their new board.
This won’t impact any potential traffic you receive from these pins, but it might impact your Pinterest SEO optimization, especially if the pin data hasn’t been optimized according to the board to which you moved it too.
2. Creating New Sections Inside Board
You can also create dedicated sections inside any board on Pinterest, if you prefer to keep your profile optimized and organized this way.
To do that follow these steps:
- Open the board where you want to add sections
- Click on Organize at the top of the page
- Select at least one pin that will be part of your new section board
- Click the middle icon at the bottom which says create section
- Name your section and save
BONUS TIP: The create section functionality within the board will not be available unless you select at least one pin image to add there.
3. Changing the Order of Pins Inside the Board
The order in which pins are displayed on your board is ranked by time.
So the fresh and latest ones will be always on the top.
If you for whatever reason want to show your most popular older pins at the beginning, you can easily change their order by following these steps:
- Open the board you want to organize
- Click on Organize on top of the page
- Manually drag the pins around until you’re happy with the placement
NOTE: if you have a lot of content on the board, it’s easier if you click on the filter icon on the right hand side, and change the view to ‘compact’. That will allow you to see the pins smaller and you can move more content faster.
4. Merging Sections Inside the Board
The last option for organizing your boards is merging sections within one board. To do this, simply open the section you want to merge and click on the three dots.
From there select edit board, and within the new window, you will see an option to merge section.
After that just pick a new section where you want this one to be added.
Need to Learn More?
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Key Takeaways
Merging Pinterest boards should only be considered a last resort and used only in specific cases. It will limit your ability to drive traffic to your blog from Pinterest.
If you need to organize your Pinterest account, you could consider alternative options, like moving individual pins, merging sections within boards or changing the titles of your boards.
FAQ: Merging Pinterest Boards
Here are some additional questions for this topic. If there is something that’s not covered, feel free to leave a comment below.
Do You Have to Merge Pinterest Boards to Move Your Pins?
No, you don’t have to merge boards to move individual pins, its not the best practice. Merging boards should be reserved only for specific cases, not for moving individual pins. To move pins without merging the board, you can simply click organize, select them, and click move to a new board.
Can You Unmerge Pinterest Boards?
No, you cannot currently unmerge a Pinterest board. The only way to fix a merged board would be to recreate a new one, and move the pins from the section board there.
Can You Merge Sections on Pinterest Boards?
Yes, you can merge sections within one board together.
What Happens When You Merge Private and Public Pinterest Boards?
The board you are merging into a new one will automatically adapt to the settings of the new board. So if you’re moving a secret board into a new board, which is public, the secret board will become public too.
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Hey, nice breakdown on merging Pinterest boards! I learned a lot. But I’m still curious: if it’s necessary to organize but not merge, what’s the best way to keep my account neat without backing myself into a corner where I cannot undo things later? Great content, really helpful.
Thank you for the comment Evelyn! That’s a good question – but it depends on how you use Pinterest. If it’s for a personal use and you want to have a very organized structure for your ideas, then you can create as many boards as you like. For business, and driving traffic & revenue from Pinterest, you should build your boards around your main content pillar (say main categories if your blog) and then expand on those. I like to plan my boards in a google sheet, and then add them slowly, so I know how many boards I have for each category. In Tailwind, you can then create ‘board lists’, so when you’re sharing content for specific category, you can click on the board list and it will add it automatically to your 5+ boards on that board list (so you dont have to remember which boards you have for that content each time). Think about your content also – if you have 80% of your content in 3 categories, those should be reflected in your board selection – so 80% of your board should be covering those top three categories. Hope this help! Lucia