Local only, for good: no shipped listings, no ads, nothing past your distance

A Facebook Marketplace search mixes three kinds of listing in with the people near you: items that ship, partner listings such as eBay’s, and ads. Your radius holds back none of them. Facebook’s Local pickup filter clears the shipped ones for one search, and the next search starts over. Sift makes local a setting you choose once, on a computer, and it stays chosen.

What local only means in Sift

Local only is three switches, because the listings that break a local search get there three different ways. Each works on its own; all three on is the local setup.

You choose which of the three to use. Some people want shipped items now and then, such as a rare part or a collectible worth the postage, and letting them back in takes one click.

Nothing Sift hides disappears without a trace. Each card keeps its reason, and you can see them all again with one click.

Why shipped listings slip past your radius

Marketplace’s radius measures from your location to the place a listing names. A shipped listing names no place: where the town would be, the card says “Ships to you”. With nothing to measure, the radius can’t hold it back, so a 10 km search can still show a desk posted from three states away. Meta describes Marketplace shipping as a way to buy from sellers across the continental United States, not only near you.

Partner listings arrived on top of that. Since January 2025, Marketplace in the US, Germany and France has carried some eBay listings. eBay says only its listings with a shipping option appear, priced as on eBay, with a partnership icon, and you pay on eBay’s checkout. What “Ships to you” means covers who protects you on each, and making Marketplace local only has Facebook’s own filter steps for the app and a computer.

In Canada you may barely use the shipped switch. Marketplace shipping is a continental US service and eBay’s listings went to the US, Germany and France, so Canadian searches often show few “Ships to you” cards or none. There, the sponsored and distance switches do the work; Facebook Marketplace in Canada covers what else differs.

Pickup stays, shipping goes

Sift doesn’t guess from the item. It hides a listing only when Facebook itself shows it as shipped or as a partner listing, such as a card that reads “Ships to you” where the town would be. A listing titled “Shipping container” stays where it is.

A seller who offers both shipping and pickup gets their town on the card, and Sift keeps that listing, so you can still go and collect it. On a signed-in Facebook account, shipped stock from US retailers often carries a “Partner listing” label; those go too.

Each shipped card Sift hides is marked “Ships to you” and counted. One click shows every hidden card again with its reason, so you can check that nothing local went by mistake. The privacy policy explains, in plain language, what Sift never touches.

A real distance from your home

Facebook draws its radius from a point it picks for your area, and listings past it tend to thin out rather than stop. Sift measures from the home you set, once: type your city or town, or use your current location. Then turn on the distance limit and choose a radius in kilometres or miles.

The distance is a straight line from your home to the listing, so where a lake or a river with few bridges is in the way, block the towns on the far side by name in Sift’s filters. Every listing that stays shows how far away it is (“12 km”). One past your line is hidden with its distance as the reason (“29 km away”).

You also decide the edge cases: what happens to a card whose town can’t be placed, and whether a Facebook or Kijiji link that sets its own radius wins on that page. Facebook’s Sort by menu offers Distance, which puts near listings first but leaves the far ones on the page. Sift’s distance filter covers it in full, and why Marketplace shows listings outside your radius explains Facebook’s side.

Sponsored listings and Kijiji Top Ads

Sift hides sponsored listings from the start. On Facebook Marketplace that means the sponsored cards placed in the grid, labelled “Ad” or “Sponsored” depending on your account and language. On Kijiji it removes the Top Ads above the results. Each one is hidden with the reason “Sponsored listing”.

Most of Sift’s filters can mark a listing instead of hiding it, but sponsored cards are always hidden, like listings you hide yourself. Sift isn’t an ad blocker for the rest of Facebook; it removes the ad cards it recognises in Marketplace and Kijiji results. For hiding ads one by one and how ad blockers fare, see hiding sponsored listings on Marketplace.

When a local seller will only ship

The shipped switch removes listings Facebook marks as shipped. It can’t catch a seller whose card shows a town and whose description says they will only ship. That matters most for things you would normally see, test or measure before you pay.

So Sift checks for that too. When a seller says they will only ship an item you would usually pick up, Sift flags the listing Ships only. It applies where meeting in person is normal, from furniture, appliances, vehicles and pets to graded cards, gaming PCs, consoles, bikes, phones and laptops.

A shipped item is paid for before you see it. Meta covers eligible purchases made through Marketplace checkout with Purchase Protection, and a seller who ships but wants paying some other way is where the patterns in Marketplace shipping scams begin. The flag is a prompt to ask: plenty of genuine sellers ship. Ask whether you can collect, and if the answer is still no, pay only through Facebook’s checkout. Buying used furniture covers what to check in person, and Sift’s scam red flags lists the other flags.

Set it up in a minute

1. Set your home in Sift: type your city or town, or use your current location.
2. Turn on the distance limit and set the radius, in km or mi. Start around 15 to 25 km and widen it if a search comes up thin.
3. Turn on hiding for shipped and partner listings.
4. Check that sponsored listings are hidden. They are from the start.
5. Optional: save the setup and name it “Local only”, so after a car or bike search you can bring your local setup back in one choice.

Sift asks for your location and offers these switches when you first set it up, so most people never need the settings at all. On days you want a wider look, you can widen the distance or let shipped listings back in with a click. Sift is free, needs no account and works right in Chrome, Edge and Brave.

If a search was mostly shipped items, hiding them leaves a short page: scroll for more, widen the radius a little or try a broader search word. To catch local listings as soon as they go up, Sift can open every search newest first.

On Kijiji

Kijiji is local by design, with no shipped-listing mix to hide, so the shipped switch only acts on Facebook. The other two work the same way. Top Ads go with sponsored listings, and the distance limit earns its keep on Kijiji’s region-wide searches: a search across all of Ontario has no radius at all, so Sift’s line from your home does the cutting, with the same distance shown on each card. Sift on Kijiji has the rest.