Facebook Marketplace photo size
Marketplace shows the cover in a near-square card, so crop 1:1 and upload a JPEG around 1200 px on a side. Tinolia crops and resizes on the server, and files are deleted within 1 hour.
Cover · 1:1
IMG_2041.HEIC1200 × 1200 JPEG
What the feed crop does to your cover
Marketplace shows the cover in a card close to 1:1, so a 4:3 phone photo loses a strip off the top and the bottom. The frame you lined up on the phone is not the frame a buyer scrolling past actually sees.
That card is the whole decision. A buyer gets one photo at thumbnail size with a price under it, and either taps or keeps going, so the item has to read at about the size of a stamp. Detail you can only see at full width is detail nobody sees.
Shoot the cover with the item centred and some room around it. That margin is what lets you close a square later without cutting off the handle, the label, or the leaf that makes the thing recognisable.
eBay and Etsy want different numbers
A 1:1 crop is the safe default across the classifieds, but the pixel floors are not the same. eBay refuses a photo under 500 px on its longest side and only turns on the zoom view once the file is big enough, so a 1600 px square is the version that gets zoom on an eBay listing.
Etsy asks for something closer to 2000 px on the short side and then renders the first photo in a card of its own shape, which trims a wide frame from the sides. A square with air around the item survives that card; a landscape shot of a whole table does not.
Marketplace itself is looser. Around 1200 px a side covers the grid and the zoom, and many upload screens still accept down to roughly 500 px. None of them invent pixels, so a 400 px crop pushed up to 1200 just looks soft.
Square it, then resize
Lock 1:1 in Crop image and keep the item filling the frame rather than the ceiling. Then set 1200 × 1200 in Resize image, or 1600 × 1600 if the same photo is going to eBay as well.
Do not upscale a 600 px photo to reach the number: the pixels are not there and the buyer sees mush. A 12 MP hallway shot is the opposite problem, too much wall and not enough plant.
- Convert the camera roll with HEIC to JPG if the files are still HEIC.
- Crop 1:1 in Crop image, keeping the item and dropping the ceiling.
- Resize to 1200 × 1200, then run Compress image if the upload bar still complains. Up to 10 files, 20 MB each.
iPhone HEIC is the wrong file
The camera saved HEIC and the upload field wants JPEG. Convert first with HEIC to JPG, and remember that a Live Photo still is all a listing needs; the clip has nowhere to go.
A file Chrome saved can be WebP with a .jpg name, and the listing bounces that the same way: Chrome WebP.
Strip GPS before the cover goes up
A photo of the spare room, the bike in the driveway, or the plant on your table usually carries the coordinates of your house, and that listing is public to strangers.
Sharing from the iPhone cleans only the copy you send, so the file about to be uploaded needs Remove EXIF first. The full walkthrough is strip GPS.
Marketplace recompresses it anyway
There is no original option on a listing, so the feed copy will always be theirs. Resizing yourself means their pass has less to chew on and the result stays sharp.
It also explains why a photo you upload twice looks worse the second time: their encoder is working on a file it already compressed once. Keep the JPEG you uploaded on your own disk, and the next listing starts from a square file instead of a screenshot of the old one.
Keep the cover clean
Covers loaded with price badges, arrows, and stamps read as spam and get less engagement, and some categories bounce them outright. The extra photos are where you show the scratch, the label, and the room.
If you do need a mark on a proof you send privately, that is a different question: watermarking a photo. Other classifieds have their own pixel floors, but the same square JPEG usually travels without changes.
Questions
What size should Facebook Marketplace photos be?
Square, around 1200 px on a side, as JPEG or PNG. Many listing forms accept down to roughly 500 px, so read the number on that screen.
Does Marketplace accept HEIC?
Marketplace HEIC uploads fail often enough to treat it as a no. Convert the photo and upload the JPEG instead of finding out when the form rejects it.
Does Facebook strip GPS from listing photos?
Facebook may drop it on its own copy, and that is not something to rely on. Strip the file yourself, because a public listing is the wrong place to test it.
Does the first photo really decide the click?
The first photo is the only one the feed shows, at thumbnail size next to the price, so a cover composed for the full frame loses the tap before anyone opens the listing.
Can I put a watermark on the cover?
A watermark on the cover is allowed and it usually costs you clicks, because stamps and prices read as junk in the feed. Keep marks for proofs you send privately.
Why does my photo look blurry in the listing?
A blurry listing photo was either upscaled from a small crop or compressed twice. Start from the original and square it once.
More guides like this
- Should you watermark a photo before posting it?A visible mark deters a lazy repost, not a determined one. Where to put it so the crop misses it, how visible is too visible, and when to skip it.
- Send original photos on WhatsAppThe chat copy is re-encoded on purpose, and HD only softens it. Attach the photo as a document for the exact bytes, or compress it yourself first.
- Visa and government photos: the 50 KB fieldMaximum 50 KB is a ceiling, a range has a floor, and the DS-160 wants nearer 240 KB. Read the screen, crop the face, set the pixels, then hit the number.