Hi PhilthyCollins,
Thanks for posting your question here. Yes, in order to make it so your images show up at the top of your listings (but not within the description) as you have described when listing through Auctiva, you just need to leave the “Auctiva Image Selection” section on the lister page blank and only select your images in the “Optional eBay Gallery Images” section below.
Although you will need to upload your images into Auctiva or another external image host initially in order to select them through the “Optional eBay Gallery Images” section, eBay will copy them to their photo hosting system as soon as your items are posted.
Therefore, if you do not intend to repost these items anew from your Saved Listings page, you could delete these images from Auctiva or any other image host you may have used any time thereafter. However, if you were to delete the images in that manner, they would no longer remain on file with the saved listings associated with the items.
If you do not need to keep your images on file with the saved listings for your items and would prefer to delete them, I agree that using the image auto-delete feature within Auctiva to ensure you do not have to delete your images manually would be a good idea.
I am under the impression that eBay will maintain any Gallery images associated with your listings for as long as they can be relisted, which is generally 90 days from when they close according to the following page of eBay's help index:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/relist.html
I am not aware of any policies that would cause eBay to delete the Gallery images used in a listing as a result of not being accessed for 3 consecutive days, but perhaps another member of our Community who is familiar with that will be able to clarify how it might relate to this situation.
-Mike