Staging from your phone with QuickStage, step by step

You can stage listing photos entirely from your phone on QuickStage: open the site in your phone's browser, tap the upload box, pick up to 10 photos from your camera roll, choose a room type and style for each, then confirm on the review screen before any credit is spent. Results take about 30 seconds a photo, show up on the page and arrive by email. Your first 3 photos are free with no account or card.

What do you need before you start?

Three things: the photos already on your phone, an email address you can open on that same phone, and a browser. There's no app to install.

Before you open the browser, apply our Original Shot Rule: stage the photo your camera took, not a copy of it. Photos that went through a text thread, a messaging app or a social post are often saved back smaller than the original, and a screenshot captures your screen rather than the photo. Small inputs still stage, but they can look soft.

How do you stage photos from your phone, step by step?

1. Open QuickStage's upload page in your phone's browser and tap the box that says "Drop photos here, or click to select". Your phone opens its own picker. Choose your photo library and select up to 10 photos.
2. Check the list. Each photo appears as a row with a thumbnail and two pickers. If you selected more than 10, only the first 10 are added; stage those, then start a second batch.
3. Pick a room type for each photo: Living Room, Bedroom, Kitchen, Bathroom, Dining Room, Office, Laundry Room, Closet, Garage, Porch / Screened Porch, Exterior or Other. A picker you haven't set yet is outlined in amber.
4. Pick a style. Interior rooms offer Modern, Scandinavian, Luxury, Farmhouse, Industrial, Bohemian, Traditional and Shabby Chic. If the room is Exterior, the second picker is labeled "Treatment" and offers Curb Appeal or Twilight instead.
5. Type your email in the "Email address" box. Results are delivered there, and no account is required.
6. Tap the button at the bottom. It reads "Review & stage 3 photos free →" on a free trial, with your own photo count in place of 3. Until every row has both a room and a style, it reads "Pick a room & style for each photo ↑" and stays disabled.
7. Read the review screen, tick the box, then tap "Confirm & stage". The next section covers what's on it.
8. If this is your first free photo on that address, QuickStage asks you to confirm your email. Tap "Email me a code →", switch to your mail app, then come back to the browser tab and type the 6-digit code. The code works for 60 minutes, and your photos and selections stay in the tab while you check your inbox.

What does the review screen show before a credit is spent?

The review screen is titled "Confirm your selections". It lists every photo as a thumbnail with the room type and style you chose beside it, and it states that one credit is used per photo. On a phone it's where you catch a mis-tap, such as a bedroom set to Office.

You'll also see short notes: empty rooms give the cleanest results, and furniture may not match perfectly when you stage the same room from several angles. The stage button stays disabled until you tick the box saying you've reviewed each photo's room and style. If any photo's longest side is under 1,024 pixels, a second box appears: "I understand small photos may stage softer." Tap "Go back" to swap that photo for the original from your camera roll.

Nothing is charged before you confirm. If you've used your free photos and have no credits left, QuickStage sends you to checkout before staging starts. Pay-as-you-go is $1 per photo with no subscription.

Where do the staged photos show up on your phone?

After you confirm, the page moves to your results. Each finished photo appears with a before-and-after slider you can drag with your thumb, a download button and a QuickFix option for correcting furnishings in staged interior rooms.

QuickStage also emails you when the photos are done, with a "View & Download All Photos" button that opens the same results page. If you close the tab, that email is the quickest way back. Every photo is also saved to your My Photos library, where you can re-download available photos later by signing in with the same email.

How do downloads work on a phone?

Tap "Download for Zillow / MLS" under a photo, or "Download all for Zillow / MLS (ZIP)" to get the whole order. Either one opens a "Before downloading" box with two checkboxes:

• A confirmation that you've reviewed the image and it accurately represents the property. You have to tick it to download.
• "Include 'Virtually Staged' watermark on downloaded image". It's on by default.

Keep the label on. It places "Virtually Staged" in the bottom-right corner, or the bottom-left if your own logo already sits bottom-right, so the two don't overlap. Many MLSs require virtually staged photos to be labeled, and California's Business and Professions Code section 10140.8 requires a disclosure that the image was altered plus access to the unaltered original. Mention the staging in the listing remarks too. This isn't legal advice; check your MLS and broker.

Each single download is a JPEG resized to fit within 2,048 by 1,536 pixels (never enlarged), named by order and room, such as staged-1-living-room-mls.jpg. Where the file lands depends on your phone and browser. Many phones save browser downloads to a downloads folder or files app rather than the photo gallery, so check your browser's downloads list first. The ZIP needs unzipping before you can use the photos, so on a phone, single downloads are usually simpler for a handful of rooms.

Phone troubleshooting: what usually goes wrong?

Bottom line

Pick originals from your camera roll, read the review screen before you tap confirm, and keep the label on. QuickStage is built to keep walls, floors, windows and paint colors as photographed and to add only movable furniture and decor, with top-quality, photorealistic results in about 30 seconds. After the 3 free photos it's $1 a photo with no subscription, or a plan from $19.99 a month with QuickFix re-dos included, down to $0.11 a photo on the annual Agency plan.

Stage three photos free from your phone on QuickStage, no account or card.