Free tool
Listing photo checker
Are your listing photos good enough? Add up to 50 photos and get a quick report card for each: size for the MLS, Zillow or Airbnb, orientation, brightness, blur, crooked walls and GPS location in the file. It is free, with no account.
Your photos never leave this device. Checking happens in your browser. Nothing is uploaded to October or anyone else, and nothing is saved or changed.
Your report
No photos yet. Add some on the left; they stay on this device.
What it checks, and the thresholds
Each photo is opened in your browser and measured on a copy 800 pixels on the long edge. Size and file size use the original.
| Check | When it warns or fails |
|---|---|
| Resolution | Under the platform's minimum fails; under its recommended size warns. The numbers are the resizer's and come from our photo size guide. |
| Orientation | A portrait (vertical) photo warns: portals are built for landscape, and Airbnb search crops photos to squares. |
| File size | Over the platform's file limit in the same table (for example 10 MB for Zillow and Airbnb, 20 MB for Realtor.com) warns. |
| Too dark | Average brightness under 70 of 255 fails, under 95 warns. Bright, professional rooms average far higher. |
| Too bright | More than 25% of the frame pure white (250 of 255 or more) fails; more than 10%, or an average over 225, warns. |
| Blur | The variance of the Laplacian (how much fine detail there is), on a 800-pixel copy with its brightness evened out: under 12 fails, under 40 warns. Sharp room photos we tried scored about 200 or more; the same photos slightly blurred scored under 20. |
| Crooked verticals | The lean of the strong near-vertical edges: over 1.5° warns, over 3° fails, and left and right sides leaning more than 3° toward or away from each other (a phone tilted up or down) warns. Too few straight lines: no verdict. |
| GPS location | A JPEG whose EXIF data holds a GPS position warns. Other formats are not checked. |
These are automatic estimates, not a judgment by a person. The brightness, blur and lean numbers come from a small copy of the photo, so a plain white wall can read as soft, a moody room as dark, and a curved or cluttered room may give no lean at all. A pass means none of these simple problems showed up; it can't see clutter, staging or whether the first photo is the right one. For what professionals do differently, see what makes listing photos look professional and real estate photo mistakes.
Questions
Why do my listing photos look bad?
Usually one of a few things a buyer or guest sees in a second: walls that lean because the phone was tilted, a dark room, white windows, a vertical photo, or a small copy instead of the original. The checker flags each of these; real estate photo mistakes has the fix for every one.
Are my photos uploaded to October?
No. The checker runs in your browser: your photos are opened and measured on your own device, and the page sends nothing to October or anyone else. Nothing is saved, and the photos are not changed.
How does it know a photo is crooked?
It finds the strong, nearly vertical edges in the photo (door frames, wall corners, cabinets) and measures how far they lean from vertical. If they all lean the same way, the phone was rotated; if the left and right sides lean toward each other, it was tilted up or down. With too few straight lines it says so instead of guessing. Professional listing photos have straight verticals: in our measurements only 7 of 392 leaned more than 1°.
What size should listing photos be?
It depends on the platform, and the checker uses the same numbers as our listing photo resizer: for example Zillow's minimum of 330 × 220 with 1536 × 1152 suggested, and Airbnb's 1024 × 683 minimum with 1200 × 800 recommended. Any iPhone 12 or newer shoots 4032 × 3024, so a photo that is too small is almost always a copy.
Why does it warn about GPS location?
A phone photo usually carries the GPS position where it was taken. Some sites strip it on upload and some keep the original file. The checker only tells you it is there; the listing photo resizer saves a copy without it.
Can I trust a pass?
As a first check, yes; as a final word, no. These are automatic estimates from a small copy of each photo: a plain white room can look soft to the blur measure, a dark photo of a dark room can be on purpose, and the checker can't see clutter, an unmade bed or a weak first photo. Look at every photo yourself before you publish.