How to make App Store screenshots, start to finish.

1. Choose the story

You can upload up to 10, and depending on orientation, up to three can appear in search results. Apple's advice is to lead with your strongest features and sequence them so they tell a story.

Write one line per screen before you capture anything: what it shows, and why someone would care. If your first three lines don't say what your app is, reorder them. Five strong screens beat ten weak ones.

2. Capture clean screens

Use realistic content that isn't anyone's real data. Avoid empty states, loading spinners, visible keyboards and debug banners.

On the iOS Simulator, set a tidy status bar, then capture:

xcrun simctl status_bar booted override --time 9:41 --batteryState charged --batteryLevel 100 --cellularBars 4
xcrun simctl io booted screenshot home.png

On Android, with a device or emulator connected:

adb exec-out screencap -p > home.png

Android's demo mode, under Developer options, gives you a clean status bar too. On a real iPhone, press the side button and volume up.

Capture on the largest device you can, because scaling down is fine and scaling up looks soft.

3. Write short captions

Apple's advice: a short phrase that enhances your visual rather than describes it. Say what someone gets, not what the screen is.

Keep them to a few words, large enough to read at search size. Leave out prices, rankings, URLs and words like "new". Google warns about the same, so one set of words works on both stores.

4. Design the set

Pick one background idea, one type pairing and one frame style, then keep them through the set so it reads as one thing. Put your focal point near the center. Apple suggests using similar colors, fonts and tone across your assets. See 10 patterns for starting points.

You can build this in Figma or Canva, or with a dedicated tool. In Appscreensii you drop in the captures and see 30 templates with your own screens.

5. Translate

Text in screenshots should be localized for the languages your app supports. Start with the ones you already support. If your interface text is in the picture, a translated caption over an English screen still looks half done, so consider the screens too.

6. Export and check

For iPhone, export 1206 × 2622 or 1179 × 2556. For iPad, if your app runs there, 2064 × 2752 or 2048 × 2732. Save as PNG without alpha, or JPEG. The size checker reads a file and tells you where it fits.

Then look at them small. Shrink a screenshot to thumbnail size and squint. If the headline disappears, it's too small or too low in contrast. Run through the checklist.

7. Upload

In App Store Connect, open your app's version and drag your files into the slot for each device, for each language. Drag to reorder. The product page preview tool shows how your page will look before it's live.

To automate it, fastlane deliver uploads from a folder of screenshots with a subfolder per language, working out each device from the image's size. Appscreensii can export in that layout.

Store rules checked November 4, 2026, against Apple's and Google's own pages. They change, so check the source before relying on any one number.