MLS photo size: what to check, and how to export it on a Mac

Most pages about MLS photo sizes state exact numbers with total confidence and cite nothing. Then they disagree with each other.

Here is the honest version: there is no single MLS specification. There are hundreds of MLS systems in North America, each setting its own rules. Anyone giving you one universal number is guessing.

This page covers what is broadly true, how to find your own board's actual numbers, and how to hit them from a Mac.

Last checked August 2026Linked sources verified

What is broadly consistent

These hold across nearly every system we found described:

• Format is JPEG. Not PNG, not HEIC, not TIFF, not RAW.
• Orientation is landscape. Portrait images are commonly rejected outright. Shoot and deliver horizontal.
• sRGB colour space. Adobe RGB or ProPhoto files look washed out or oversaturated in browsers.
• There is a per-file size cap, usually somewhere between 10 MB and 20 MB. A well-compressed JPEG at listing resolution lands well under any of them.

What varies, and what we could not verify

Commonly repeated figures — treat as starting points, not facts:

• Minimum dimensions quoted anywhere from 1024×768 up to 1920×1080, depending on the board and how recently it updated.
• 2048×1536 is widely described as a good 2026 target. It is a 4:3 frame, comfortably above every minimum we saw, and under every file cap.
• Per-file caps of 15 MB and 20 MB are attributed to specific large systems.

We could not verify any of these against primary MLS documentation. Every source we found was another blog. We are not going to repeat numbers we cannot stand behind. If you need certainty, use the next section.

One thing we can say from primary sources, because we went and read them: where an MLS or a portal does publish real numbers, they are often stricter than the blog consensus. The Dutch portal Funda publishes a hard landscape minimum of 2160×1440 — which means the very common 2048-pixel long edge is rejected there. If you deliver into Europe as well as North America, do not assume one export setting covers both.

How to find your board's real numbers

Five minutes, once, and then you know.

1. Log into your MLS and open the photo upload screen. Most show the limits right there, or link to them from a help icon. This is the authoritative source.
2. Search your board's help centre for "photo requirements" or "image specifications".
3. Ask your agent client to send you the rules their board publishes. They have the login. It takes them a minute.
4. Upload one test image at your intended size before delivering the full set.
5. Write it down per board. If you shoot across two or three MLS areas, they will differ.

A resolution that works almost everywhere

If you cannot check, or you deliver into several systems, a practical default:

• 2048 × 1536 pixels, landscape
• JPEG, quality around 80
• sRGB
• Result: roughly 2–6 MB per file

This clears the minimums we saw and stays under every cap we saw. It is a compromise, not a specification. Verify when you can.

Deliver a second, larger set to the agent for brochures, websites and print. Do not let the MLS size become your only master.

How to export this on a Mac

Lightroom Classic

Export dialog:

• Image Format: JPEG. Quality: 80.
• Colour Space: sRGB.
• Resize to Fit: Long Edge, 2048 pixels. Tick Don't Enlarge.
• Resolution: 240 ppi. This affects nothing on screen. Leave it.
• File Naming: Custom Text plus Sequence. See below.

Save it as a preset named after the board, not after the number. Preset: BoardName-MLS survives a spec change; Preset: 2048px does not.

Note that "Long Edge 2048" gives you 2048 on the long side and lets the short side fall where your crop puts it. If your board wants an exact 4:3 frame, crop to 4:3 first.

Photos app

Weakest option. File → Export → Export Photos, JPEG, and you get a coarse Small/Medium/Large/Full choice with no pixel entry. Fine in an emergency, not for delivery.

Preview, for a handful of files

Select files in Finder, open in Preview, Edit → Select All in the sidebar, Tools → Adjust Size. Set the long edge, tick Scale Proportionally, then File → Export as JPEG.

Workable for five files. Miserable for three hundred.

Automator or a shell script

If you are comfortable at a terminal, sips ships with macOS:

sips --resampleHeightWidthMax 2048 -s format jpeg *.jpg --out ./mls/

Fast and free. It gives you no control over JPEG quality or colour space conversion, so check the output before you rely on it.

The naming problem

Sizing is only half of delivery. The other half is that the files have to arrive as an ordered, sensibly named set for one property.

Portals and agents generally display in filename order. If your files are IMG_4471-HDR.jpg through IMG_4783-HDR.jpg, the order is capture order, which is not the order a buyer should see a house in.

What works:

12-oak-street-01.jpg
12-oak-street-02.jpg
12-oak-street-03.jpg

Zero-padded, so 10 does not sort before 2. Address-prefixed, so files from two shoots never collide in a downloads folder.

Lightroom's export renaming does this with a Custom Text plus Sequence template. You retype the address on every shoot, and the sequence follows your catalogue sort order, so you set the running order by dragging in the filmstrip before you export.

Where we fit

The manual loop is: set the running order, retype the address, export at the board's size, put it in a folder named after the property. Every shoot, by hand.

We are building Hauscrate, a Mac app that treats the property shoot as the unit of work rather than the image. You drop a folder of brackets from one house. It groups brackets per room, merges them with exposure fusion, straightens verticals, removes colour cast, and exports at portal sizes with sequential names in one folder per address. It runs entirely on your Mac.

Related: Batch HDR merge in Lightroom Classic · Editing property photos without uploading them