Etsy — Listing photo
No background rule. Rejects transparent PNGs and animated GIFs. The app crops to 4:5.
| Minimum longest side | 635 px |
|---|---|
| Recommended longest side | 2,000 px — below this, zoom does not engage |
| Ideal longest side | 2,000 px |
| Maximum longest side | 10,000 px |
| Maximum file size | 20 MB |
| Accepted formats | JPEG, PNG, GIF |
| Preferred format | JPEG |
| Aspect ratio | 1:1 (recommended, not enforced) |
| Background | No requirement |
| Minimum product fill | No requirement |
| Transparency | Not allowed — flatten onto white |
| Animation | Not allowed |
The mobile crop is the rule nobody tells you about
You upload a square photo. Etsy's app displays it at 4:5 — taller than it is wide — which means roughly the top and bottom edges of your square are cut away on the surface where most of your buyers are looking.
Nothing about this is a validation failure. Your listing publishes cleanly and looks correct on desktop. It just quietly loses the top of the product, or the bottom of the styling, for the majority of the people who see it.
Compose for the crop: keep the product and anything that matters within the central 4:5 region, and treat the outer bands as bleed rather than content.
Transparent PNGs are rejected
This one is a hard failure and it surprises people, because a transparent PNG is the natural export for anyone who has cut a product out of its background. Etsy will not take it.
Flattening onto a solid colour resolves it. White is the safe default, but Etsy — unlike Amazon or Walmart — has no background rule at all, so any colour that suits the shop is fine. Animated GIFs are likewise rejected; the first frame has to become a still.
The first photo is doing most of the work
It is the thumbnail in search results, so it is the only image most shoppers ever evaluate. Etsy's own guidance is unusually direct about this, and it is the one place a lifestyle shot tends to beat a clean cut-out, since Etsy buyers are browsing for a look rather than filtering for a SKU.
What a pixel check cannot tell you
These rules need a human eye. The checker lists them rather than passing them silently, because a tool that reports a clean bill of health and then lets a listing get suppressed is worse than no tool at all.
- First photo carries the most weight — it is the search thumbnail
- Check how the image looks cropped to 4:5, which is what the mobile app shows
Questions
What size should an Etsy listing photo be?
At least 635 px on the shortest side; 2,000 px square is the practical target. Etsy allows very large files, but keeping each under about 1 MB is worth doing for page speed on mobile connections.
Does Etsy require a white background?
No. Etsy has no background requirement at all, which is the biggest difference from Amazon and Walmart. Lifestyle and styled shots are actively normal there.
Why was my PNG rejected by Etsy?
Almost certainly transparency. Etsy rejects PNGs with an alpha channel. Flatten it onto a solid background — any colour — and re-export.
What is the 4:5 crop about?
The Etsy mobile app displays listing photos at 4:5 rather than square, so the top and bottom of a square image get cropped away for most viewers. Keep the important content in the central 4:5 region.
Other marketplaces
The rules differ more than people expect — a photo that passes on one channel can fail on another for reasons that have nothing to do with quality.
- Amazon product image requirements
- Walmart Marketplace image requirements
- eBay listing photo requirements
Sources
Specifications last verified . Amazon's own documentation is partly behind a Seller Central login, so where published sources conflict the permissive value is treated as the hard failure and the stricter one as a warning.