The listing thumbnail has no GPS. Am I done?

The CDN thumbnail is their recode. Your disk, your drafts, and the photo you later send the buyer in chat can still carry the pin. Clean those files too.

I cross-posted to a second marketplace. Do I strip again?

If the second app read the Camera Roll original, yes. A clean listing on site A does not mutate the JPEG on your phone. Upload the verified download each time.

Will Strip blur my house number?

No. Crop or reshoot. Strip’s job is the invisible GPS IFD, not pixel redaction. A clean tag sheet on a photo of your front door is still a photo of your front door.

The listing is down. Is the leak gone?

Their cache may linger. Your phone still has the original until you delete it. Treat delisting and disk cleanup as two steps.

Marketplace: the listing CDN is not your disk

Updated 6 September 2026

A public thumbnail with empty EXIF does not mean the JPEG on your phone is clean. Marketplaces recompress for the listing. Camera Roll, the draft, the extra angle you drop into chat with a buyer — those are other files. Strip those. The house in the picture is still the house.

Two leaks, only one is EXIF

Sellers mix them up. Leak one: GPSLatitude in the JPEG, enough decimals to name a building. Leak two: the pixels — a house number, a unique fence, a reflection of the street, a laptop with mail on the screen, a neighbor’s plate. Strip removes leak one from the file you run through this tab. It does not touch leak two. If the sofa has to sit in the living room, the living room is in the frame. Fill the frame with the object or accept the room.

The short “shot in a driveway” story already lives on use cases. This page is the ceiling that page does not own: their CDN copy versus your disk, plus pixels that survive any tag scrub.

What the listing actually stores

Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, OLX, Avito, Kolesa, 2GIS and the rest typically ingest your upload, recode a few sizes, and serve those. The public “save image” is often their recode. That recode may already have no GPS. You look at it, feel safe, and later send the Camera Roll original to a buyer “so they see the scratch.” That DM is the pin. Drafts are the pin. Cross-posting from Recents to a second site is the pin. Delisting the ad does not delete DCIM.

You do not control which path a given app takes this month. Some pass originals longer than others. The only file you control is the one you verified in Strip and then picked on purpose.

Buyer chat is a second marketplace

The listing is one pipe. The chat with a stranger who wants “one more photo of the serial sticker” is another. People strip for the listing and then open Photos. That still has GPS. Use the same Downloads file, or strip the new angle before it leaves the device. If the chat app is WhatsApp, the bubble versus disk problem is documented separately — do not send Recents as document.

Cross-posting does not inherit a clean

A clean listing on site A is not a mutation of the JPEG. Site B’s uploader will read whatever you pick. If you pick Camera Roll, site B gets GPS even if site A’s CDN is clean. Keep a folder of verified stills and upload from that folder every time. Replace a draft image; do not append “one extra original.”

After the listing dies

You took the ad down. Their cache may still hold a recode for a while. That recode is their problem and usually already stripped. Your problem is the original on the phone, the ZIP you emailed yourself “for insurance,” and the photo sitting in a sold-items chat. Insurance originals belong in a private folder, not in Recents next to the next listing. Strip does not delete those for you.

Steps

Look at the picture as a picture. Crop house numbers and open laptops before you care about tags.
Run the JPEG through the Strip tool. Fast on typical product JPEG so fabric and scratches stay bit-identical.
Download. Re-drop. Empty GPS. Keep that file in Files / Downloads with a boring name.
Upload that file to the listing. Replace drafts. Do not grab Recents for “one more angle.”
When a buyer asks for another still, strip that still too. Chat is not the listing CDN.
On iPhone, remember the album never updated — iCloud still has the original.

What this page will not do

We will not walk through hiding illegal goods, stripping IDs, or “how to stay anonymous while selling.” The legitimate job is: the object is the story, the pin is not, and the public thumbnail is not proof that your disk is clean. We will not claim a marketplace “always strips EXIF so you can skip this.”

What looks like a bug and is not

Saved listing image has no GPS — their recode. Inspect your disk file.
Buyer received a pin in chat — you sent Recents. Send the verified download.
Second site leaked — cross-post from Camera Roll. Use the same Downloads folder.
House still visible — pixels. Crop. Strip will not invent a blur.

Honesty limits

Strip is not a redaction brush and not a marketplace plugin. Empty GPS on the file you upload and the file you DM is the bar. Unique architecture in the background is a shooting problem. MakerNotes we cannot parse stay out of the promise. Verify with a re-drop, not with folklore about what the app “usually” does.