Bulk Active Content Editor for eBay Listings

...item list will display here...

Download results as zip file

You may generate zip files of original content or revised content, in FileExchange CSV format (1) or in HTML/Text format (2). Only descriptions that were altered by the scan rules are saved in all formats. Unaltered descriptions were skipped and not saved for retrieval unless you had already selected the "save originals" scan option. The last Scan Report (3) is limited to revised descriptions and does not include any originals.

Since zip processing may take some time, and generated files may be rather large, please consider generating only those files you may need. When files are generated, links will appear in the boxes below that can be clicked to download the results. Multiple files will appear if the number or size of files exceeds FileExchange job limits.

+1. Description Spreadsheets for File Exchange FileExchange limits new users to 5000 line items (actions) per day. That is the default here. The next FileExchange tier is 50,000 items per day, but this tool is limited to no more then 30,000 items per job. If you have higher limits, you may choose the number of rows (actions) to use per CSV file, although the size of your descriptions may automatically impose further CSV size limits.
File Exchange CSV Format (Standard) Multiple descriptions (Original or Revised) in each CSV file will be formatted for File Exchange and will be zipped into one or more downloads. Change the CSV character encoding to match your File Exchange upload site. US,CA,AU,UK,DE must use CP1252 format and may lose special symbols. Euro may use UTF-8 format. (Use caution if changing format)	Original File Exchange CSV	Revised File Exchange CSV (std)
+2. Description HTML Files These description files are not spreasheet formatted. Instead, each listing description is a separate file. As many files as will fit are packed into each zip file.
HTML Description Files by Item Number Individual description files (Original or Revised) are zipped into one or more downloads. Useful for archiving or for other tools. (Always UTF-8 encoded.)	Original Description HTML	Revised Description HTML
+3. Scan Reports Scan reports are available in CSV spreadsheet format below for sellers performing their own description revisions. These reports include the same information displayed in the scan: item number, title, price, date, format, thumbnail url, listing url, and violations (without descriptions) for all scanned items. The optional description report covers only the revised items and adds the revised descriptions to the spreadsheet. If you would like a full spreadsheet of all items with descriptions included, set the scan filter to "Force Archive". These CSV reports are delivered in one or more zip files. By default, eBay stores data in UTF-8 format, so UTF-8 reports are delivered. But eBay's File Exchange is limited to specific character encoding, as stated above. If your descriptions or titles contain special symbols and you plan to modify these reports for File Exchange, you may want to select the proper character encoding for your File Exchange site.
Scan Report with or without Description The lightweight Scan Report will include title, price, and violation statistics for all scanned items. Or select a spreadsheet of stats for only the revised items that also includes revised descriptions. The spreadsheets will not be labeled for File Exchange and will be zipped into one or more downloads.	Lite Scan Report CSV (no desc)	Scan Report with Revised Desc CSV
Not all eBay sites support an eBay File Exchange bulk upload tool, but eBay's upload tool will support items listed on different sites. If you are able to access eBay's tool, you should be able to upload item revisions posted on different eBay sites. US \| CA \| AU \| UK \| DE \| FR \| IT \| AT \| ES

Bulk Find/Replace tool for eBay Descriptions and Active Content:

Reduce the pain of bulk editing descriptions. This tool will capture your item descriptions and remove Active Content and non-eBay links, or Find/Replace custom text in those copies. Accepts wildcard formulas for search criteria, and returns original, edited, and CSV-formatted descriptions that work with eBay's File Exchange for automating the revision process. A full replacement scan, ready for File Exchange, may require a half hour to complete and will save days of tedious editing.

Please note that this tool does NOT revise your listings. It will prepare a revision file that is ready to bulk upload to eBay's File Exchange.

Simplified step-by-step instructions can be found on this page (opens in a new window).

Just Archiving?

This tool can be used to archive descriptions in addition to, or instead of, revising descriptions. After the list of item numbers loads, select one of the archiving options at the top of the Scan Setup screen.

Save Originals will save all of your unrevised original descriptions for zipping. Use this method if you don't need to fix any listings and want to turn off the other scan filters. Collect your zips from the "originals" (left) window in the resulting zip panel.
Force Archive will save all of your revised descriptions for zipping, and will add to that list any originals that required no revision. Use this method if you need to fix some, or all, of your descriptions before saving all of them. Collect your zips from the "revisions" (right) window in the resulting zip panel.

Is this tool helpful?

While I would like to keep this tool free to use, our server has a bill to pay. So if you find this tool helpful, please consider a no-obligation donation to our server at the bottom of this page.

LEGEND:

The tool will scan items found publicly on eBay, without accessing your account, and can not search adult or out-of-stock items, since those items are not publicly viewable. The tool will advise which of your listings contain Active Content and will generate files with filtered content stripped and replaced (the tool does not directly edit your listings). Those revision files can be used in other tools to modify your listings.

This tool can scan up to 10,000 items (approx 500 items per minute). Use the search criteria to reduce the search range if you have more than 10,000 items, thus creating subgroupings based on category, price, or date order.

For large jobs, more than 10,000 items, adult content, or stock control, open the Advanced Instructions below to learn how to use your FileExchange data as input to this tool.

Overlaps If scanning while listings are being added or removed, the results may have overlaps or gaps in data returned from eBay, as the tool will be retrieving from a moving target. The overlaps are captured here to adjust the totals, and you can ignore them. The gaps can only be captured by a subsequent scan at a later time.

Untested This tool will build a list of up to 10,000 active items. All untested item rows will remain purple. Any that remain purple after the scan has completed have encountered a scan problem. Try scanning those items individually in the ActiveContentSandbox tool. If the scan stalls on a page, click the next page number to skip the problem and continue the scan.

No Active content When no Active Content, link violations, or SSL media issues are found in an item, its row will turn white. That item complies with eBay's Active Content rules and will not trigger a revision file.

Violations If the "Remove Active Content", "Remove non-eBay Links", or "Repair Link Targets" option has been selected in settings, then items with these issues will turn red. The Active Content and non-eBay links will be removed from the revision file, and link targets will be corrected in the revision file. If other selected issues are found in these listings, they will also be included under this summary heading and will be revised,

SSL Media If SSL media issues are found, the row will turn orange and http will be converted to https in the revision file. SSL remediation is optional, so this filter must be selected by the user to be applied. When selected, listings with SSL issues that also contain violations will be reported in the violations summary rather then in the SSL summary, although the SSL issues will still be addressed.

Widgets & Custom Checkmarking widget removals or using the find/replace filters in the scan settings will return results in yellow (widgets) or blue (find/replace) in the grid. The custom filters will be tested before the other standard filters are applied, and items modified by any one of the custom filters or widget filters will be added to a summary list. The act of removing a custom block of text may also remove some active content that is reported in the active content list. Custom modifications (widgets or find/replace) will trigger a revision file.

No Custom Additionally, when custom filters and widgets are selected, any item that does not appear in the Custom list will appear in the No-Custom list, but will not be marked in the grid.

NOTE: If no revisions were made to any of the descriptions, and if no archiving options were chosen, there will be no descriptions to zip and save.

Click to open Advanced INSTRUCTIONS...

The Active Content Bulk Listing Editor is a multi-stage tool.

Get eBay Items

Each time you fetch new items from eBay, you will create a new job number, which will be displayed at the top right of the page. Your corrected descriptions will be stored in this job number for two days. Older jobs are not accessible from this tool, so download the data from your current job before starting another.

The first stage will retrieve up to 10,000 item numbers from eBay and requires only your username and country where the items are listed. Retrieving items can take up to 2 minutes. For larger numbers of listings, use the provided search settings in the same manner as on a normal eBay search page to retrieve items in smaller groups.

For your convenience, you can paste your saved settings from a prior job. Use the "saved settings" box provided on the first tab and click the button to populate the tool with your saved settings [screenshot]. Then alter any that require changing before starting your project.

Click the "Get eBay Items" button to retrieve eBay's item list. Each time the button is used, all current activity is cleared and a new project is started on the server, so don't start a new project unless necessary. Once the item list is loaded into the browser, the tool will proceed to the second stage.

Already have a list? If you have already downloaded your active listings from File Exchange [screenshot], or have a summary list from this tool or from the bulk scanner, you may select "FILE EXCH CSV" from the country list on this tool. A box will appear where you can paste that CSV data and click "Use CSV List" to begin extracting the item list [screenshot].

A File Exchange download of Active items may contain items listed on more than one eBay site or country and this tool will generate results files that are appropriately marked by country. Additionally, to decrease the size of your pasted file, you may remove all but these seven columns: [Item ID,Price,Start Date,End Date,Type,Item Title,Site Listed]. The tool reads these seven column headers to provide an informational display, but really requires only "Item ID" and "Site Listed". As such, the "FILE EXCH CSV" window will also accept the summary results column from this tool or from the Bulk Scanner tool, which may be useful when trying to reduce scan times for smaller sets of items.

WARNING: your input list may not exceed 30,000 items per job. So if your list is longer, break it into several jobs with the same header row on each. Additionally, more than 10,000 items per job may slow your browser, so you may wish to break large projects into even smaller jobs of 10,000 items.

Iterative Scans: A bonus feature for only experienced or advanced users is the ability to reprocess the revised descriptions from a prior job by selecting "FILE EXCH CSV" from the country list and pasting the prior job number into the window that appears (job number is at top right of the page after a scan, and looks like sellername_1512107117904). If the prior scan job is still on the server, it can be run back through this tool with new scan filters that can apply more changes to the prior changes. Doing so will create a new job number, which can then be scanned with new filters in an iterative process. Each time a prior job is rerun this way, there is a risk of ever-smaller job results due to fewer matches. If it is desirable to keep the entire batch with each subsequent scan, something should be added to the description with each batch (the MobileViewport, FileExchange, or Force Archive checkboxes will work for this). Iterative scans are useful for first identifying listings with certain characteristics and then applying filters to only that subset.

Example: Suppose a seller has 8000 listings with 2000 that require repaired photo URLs. Description "add-ons", like the Mobile Viewport or File Exchange Logo innoculation, will cause all 8000 listings to go into revision. By first using filters to repair the 2000 listings, the seller can then send that list of 2000 items back through the tool and apply the Mobile Viewport or File Exchange logo removal to that subset.
Scan Setup

Stage 2 will set up the scan filters. With the item list loaded into the browser, this stage will be used to define the scan filters. Review the options to select which Active Content items to remove.

I already have custom filters: If you have a previous filter list or were supplied a filter list for your scan, return to the first "Get eBay Items" screen and add your filter code block to the "Saved Job Settings" box. Click the "populate" button and the filters will be applied to the Scan Setup page. Click back to the Scan setup page and continue from there. There is no need to retrieve a new set of item numbers if you want to scan the list that is already loaded.

Checkmark filters: The basic checkboxes allow you to remove Active Content, Remove non-eBay links, Repair link targets, Change https protocols, and add the Viewport meta tag or eBay's image styles. To protect against unforeseen loss of content, the description originals are automatically saved for any modified descriptions, and should be downloaded along with your revision files if you plan to bulk revise. Additionally, you can choose to save the originals for items that required no modification by checkmarking the "Save Originals" box. In a similar fashion, the "Force Archive" option will force the tool to save all descriptions as "revised", not just those that required modifications. Because the "Save Originals" and "Force Archive" options save all files, they can be used individually or together to archive descriptions.

We have predefined many common widget wrappers and icons that may appear in listings. They are based on the start and end markers most frequently found for those widgets. Take care in using them because if parts of those markers have been removed or differ in your listing, the filters will not find them. Or if user content was inadvertantly added inside widget markers, user content may be removed. In some cases, the markers were so ambiguous that we decided to not include them in our list.

If you update your listings through File Exchange, the File Exchange filter is designed to append and hide (innoculate against) the File Exchange logo that may be appended to the bottom of your listing.

To help with mobile viewing, we've added and flagged some filters to address common issues, like runs of underscores, runs of spaces, and some older font sizes. Due to the rising issues with eBay font wrappers causing the description to disappear, the eBay font filter has been made more aggressive, and because of that, has been moved to the mobile list to warn it should be used more carefully.

If you use these predefined filters and are unsure of the integrity of your code, we do recommend saving your original backups, as provided by this tool.

Text Filters: You may also set up custom find/replace filters in this stage. A Custom filter row will be ignored if its first text box is left empty. If custom data is entered as plain text, the scan will only find exactly matching (case-insensitive) text, with the same spacing, HTML encoding, and line breaks. The scan will find as many matches as exist in the file. If start text and end text are both entered, the scan will find all text between those markers, including the markers. If the replacement field is empty, the matching text will be removed, otherwise the matching content will be replaced by the text entered in the replacement field.

The scan filters include several predefined keywords that will allow you to append new content to <<+BEFORE>> the beginning or <<+AFTER>> the end of the document, delete all <<-ALL>>, delete content from the beginning <<FROM-START>> to a marker, or delete from a marker to the end <<TO-END>>. Only one of each type is allowed.

The replacement field allows insertion of an <<+ITEMID>> that will detect the item number within the listing and paste it into the replacement at the position of the keyword tag. Multiples are allowed within replacements.

Note that if the Viewport option (or Image Style tag option) is checkmarked, it is the last to be added to the top of the description and will replace any duplicate Viewport meta tags (or duplicate Image Style tag).

Text Filters (Regex): Alternatively, a PHP Regex wildcard format can be used in the first text field of a line. The second field must be empty. The regex string must be enclosed in at least one set of parentheses and be further wrapped in enclosing slashes. The "case-insensitive" designator "i" may be appended or omitted to modify the match. This tool will then auto-detect your regex when it sees a field that starts with "/(" and ends with either ")/" or ")/i". The replacement field on this tool must be either plain text/html or empty, for either replacement or removal of all the matches.

When using Regex start markers, back-annotation of the replacement code is also supported. This allows you to remove a block of text, yet preserve parts of that text to be inserted into your replacement text. Starting with the opening parenthesis number "one" on the left of your regex, consecutive left parentheses are numbered from left to right. However, since "one" is the entire phrase, it can not be used to back annotate itself, as that would destroy the remainder of the match, so you may start with the second and subsequent parentheticals.

To use back-annotation in your replacement text, insert the placeholders <<+2>> to <<+99>> wherever the parenthetical clause found by the Regex is to be inserted in your replacement text. The placeholder only applies to its own filter line, so you might use a different <<+2>>, with a different meaning, in other filter lines. This feature can be used to reformat image tags or videos, or to pull and reuse content during a makeover.

Example: One trick for pulling out and preserving smaller sections of a larger template is to use the placeholder to find relevant segments. So one filter row may find a phrase and replace it with AAAAAA<<+2>>BBBBBB while the next replaces a phrase with XXXXXX<<+2>>ZZZZZZ. A subsequent filter row might delete from some marker to AAAAAA, while the next filter row might delete from BBBBBBB to XXXXXX, essentially stripping out unwanted content between the saved phrases marked as <<+2>> and <<+2>> in two different filters. And then another might delete from ZZZZZZ to some later marker.

A scan is performed in this order in all three Active Content tools, depending on which features are enabled:
1. All custom text replacements are tested first.
2. The custom checkmark list follows the custom text.
3. Next, the tool removes Active Content, starting with forms, events, objects, and scripts.
4. After that, link targets, and then SSL media are examined and repaired.
5. The custom add-before and add-after are attached.
6. And finally, the viewport tag and image style may be added to the top of the document, and FileExchange innoculation to the bottom, if chosen.
A scan will save your modified descriptions to file, along with a copy of the original. If you want to additionally save originals that did not require modification, checkmark the "save originals" box and every original item description will be saved to a file. Conversely, if you want to save unmodified descriptions along with those that were modified, then check the "force archive" box and every unmodified description will also be saved to a revision file.

When all parameters are chosen, click the "Start New Scan" button.

The tool will scan each listing, one at a time, and will write a replacement file to the server only when the item description has been changed by the scan (unless "save originals" or "force archive" have been selected to save additional files). Multi-page scans can be canceled and restarted, and unscanned items will be scanned after restart.

Changes to the scan filters will not affect a scan in progress. To change the scan filters and rescan with new filters, change the data and click the "Start New Scan" button. This will force a rescan of all items, from the beginning, using the new criteria, and each item revision file on the server will be rewritten with the new scan results. Unaltered descriptions are not saved unless the "Save originals" or "Force archive" box is checked.
Scan Descriptions

To prevent browser overload, the item list is divided into pages, and each page is scanned in its entirety before moving on to the next page. After the scan has stopped, you can move back and forth between the pages by clicking a page button to review the listing data on each page.

If a page scan stalls, you may click the page button to rescan that page and, hopefully, get past a temporary scan problem, or click the next page to jump over the problem.

When there are multiple pages, a "Restart Scan" button is available and will quickly check existing results from the beginning, skipping any that are already scanned, and won't alter existing scan results on the server. It will simply add any missed items to the current scan results.

A summary of item numbers is displayed at the bottom of the scan lists, categorized by scan results. The line number for each item appears beside the item number in the Scan Results table so that you can easily find the page that contains the scan details for that item.

Those scan summary lists can be pushed back through the tool using the FILE EXCHANGE CSV option on the country list as a way to reduce the revision list. Using those lists will again retrieve the original descriptions from eBay for scanning. Use the iterative process if you want to reprocess the revision files instead of retrieving new originals.
Collect Changed Descriptions

After scanning, your scan parameters are displayed at the top of the page so that you can copy and paste them back into the first screen of the tool at a later date to perform a similar scan. This feature might be useful if you have selected advanced inputs like eBay categories or custom scan filters.

Additionally, this field can be copied into the Custom page in the Sandbox tool where the Custom filters will be extracted. Similarly, the filters used in the Sandbox tool can be extracted on that tool and can be added here (on the first screen or third screen), where saved job settings may be re-entered and populated.

Scans resulting in modified descriptions will generate a "revision" file and "original" file that will be saved to your job folder on our server. The server jobs will be cleared out in 5 days, so you must be prepared to collect your data and process your file changes in a timely fashion. You can choose to retrieve the files in HTML format for use in your own listing tool and for normal viewing, or the data can be retrieved in CSV format for FileExchange.

A Scan Report can be downloaded as a zipped CSV file. This report is similar to the onscreen item rows, but in CSV format. It covers all scanned items and does not include any descriptions. This list can also be pushed back into the tool using the FILE EXCHANGE CSV option on the country list if different scan parameters are desirable.

Revised descriptions, with accompanying scan data, can be downloaded as a separate CSV report, with multiple items per spreadsheet. These spreadsheet files will be significantly larger and will not be labeled for File Exchange. If you would like this report to include all descriptions, then checkmark the "Force Archive" option prior to scanning.

Downloads Your files will be compressed into one or more zip files for download to your computer, where you can unzip and use as needed. eBay's FileExchange has a 15MB size limit and a nominal 5000-item daily upload limit, so those upper limits are honored when generating your zip files. Thus a single job may include multiple zip files.

Thank You!

If you use this tool multiple times or have more than 1000 listings, please consider a donation. Our tools are ad-free and have no other source of support. Our server happily accepts PayPal donations to help defray the cost of scanning millions of listings daily.

API calls:

Listings scanned:

Scans Per Hour:

EBAY SEARCH SETTINGS
Keyword search:
Site Categories	Sort Order	Listing Type

+1. Description Spreadsheets for File Exchange

File Exchange CSV Format (Standard)

+2. Description HTML Files

HTML Description Files by Item Number

+3. Scan Reports

Scan Report with or without Description

Just Archiving?

Is this tool helpful?

LEGEND:

Click to open Advanced INSTRUCTIONS...

Thank You!