App Store screenshot best practices that actually convert.

The 2026 required sizes

Apple changed the primary iPhone display class in the App Store Connect upload form. You now upload into the iPhone 6.9-inch display bucket at 1320×2868 pixels (portrait) or 2868×1320 (landscape). This is the iPhone 16 Pro Max resolution and is the surface that actually appears on most customers' product pages.

The other display classes are still available for upload, and most developers continue to upload iPad Pro 13-inch screenshots for any iPad-compatible app. Here is the current full list:

Format: RGB color space, no alpha channel, PNG or JPEG. Maximum size per file is 8 MB. App Store Connect rejects uploads that don't match one of the accepted dimensions exactly — a 1320×2867 screenshot won't be accepted as an iPhone 6.9-inch asset.

Ordering: the first three screenshots do 80% of the work

When a user taps your app in search results, the product page renders with the first three screenshots visible side-by-side on a modern iPhone (with partial visibility of the fourth). Anything after position 3 requires a horizontal swipe and gets substantially fewer impressions. Apple's App Analytics surfaces this gap directly if you look at "Scrolled Product Page" versus total product page views.

Implication: the first three screenshots are your headline. They have to communicate the core value before the user decides whether to keep looking or tap the back arrow.

A pattern that consistently performs across categories:

1. Position 1: The one-sentence "what this app is" statement. The most important feature and the most compelling visual.
2. Position 2: A concrete proof point or outcome — what you get out of using the app.
3. Position 3: A differentiator — the feature that separates you from the category average.
4. Positions 4-10: Supporting features, progressive discovery, social proof (awards, press), platform features (widgets, Shortcuts, watchOS).

If you lead with a login screen, a splash screen, or a generic dashboard, you've wasted the most valuable real estate on the App Store. Fix this first before anything else.

Video-first vs screenshot-first

Apple supports up to 3 app preview videos per locale. When a video is uploaded, it displays before the first screenshot on the product page. This means a video effectively takes the slot your first screenshot would have occupied.

When video wins:

• Games, creative tools, and anything where motion communicates value (AR, camera apps, drawing apps).
• Apps with a distinctive gesture or interaction that is hard to read from a static image.
• Apps where the first 5 seconds can show a compelling transformation ("before" to "after").

When screenshots win:

• Utility apps where users scan to see if the app does X. Static captions beat a video they'd have to tap through.
• Apps whose product surfaces are information-dense (spreadsheets, dashboards, reading apps). Text in a static screenshot is legible; the same text in an auto-muted 3-second clip isn't.
• Early-stage apps where producing a polished 30-second video is a large cost relative to the marginal conversion gain.

Autoplay and sound: app previews auto-play muted in most surfaces. Your video must communicate without audio. Captions burnt into the video are acceptable and often essential. If you add voice-over, assume most viewers never hear it.

Duration: Apple allows 15 to 30 seconds. Faster-paced previews (15-20 seconds) tend to hold attention better. The first 3 seconds decide whether the viewer keeps watching.

Caption strategy

Captions are the text overlaid on your screenshot — a headline ("Track every biomarker in one timeline") and sometimes a subtitle underneath. Captions compress the value statement into a scannable phrase so a user who is swiping fast gets the idea without reading the description.

What works:

• Short, benefit-led headlines. 3-6 words. "Import 200+ lab tests" beats "A comprehensive import system for medical tests". Users skim; make the headline do the work.
• Consistent typography. Same font, same weight, same placement across all 10 screenshots. Inconsistency makes the set look amateur.
• High contrast between caption and background. White on a light screenshot is illegible. Either use a solid background behind the caption or place captions in a top/bottom band.
• Captions in the locale's language. English captions on a Japanese store page read as a red flag to local users.

What doesn't work: tiny captions that only render on the thumbnail size, captions longer than one line on the iPhone 6.9-inch frame, captions that just restate the feature name ("Settings screen"), captions with mixed casing and colors on different screenshots.

Device frame versus no frame

The long-running debate. Apple has no rule either way. What the data says:

• Framed screenshots (an iPhone chrome drawn around the screenshot content) read as more polished for productivity, utility, and professional tools. Finance, medical, B2B SaaS apps typically perform better with frames because they signal quality.
• Full-bleed screenshots (no device chrome; the screenshot fills the full 1320×2868) maximize the visual real estate and tend to work better for games, media apps, and anything where the image itself is the pitch.
• Mixed approaches — full-bleed for the first two screenshots, framed for feature walkthroughs — can work but require careful art direction to not look inconsistent.

Most asset generators (including AppConsul's Pro Store Assets Generator) let you toggle frame on and off per screenshot and export both variants for A/B testing.

A/B testing with PPO and custom product pages

Apple provides two native A/B surfaces.

Product Page Optimization (PPO)

PPO runs a controlled test against your default product page. You can test variants of: the app icon, screenshots, or app preview video. Up to 3 treatments run against the default. Apple handles the traffic split (uniform across treatments including control), shows the results in App Store Connect under Product Page Optimization, and flags a statistically significant winner.

Apple's guidance is to run PPO for at least 30 days or until you reach statistical significance, whichever comes first. Tests with low traffic won't reach significance in reasonable time — PPO works best for apps with at least mid-five-figure weekly impressions.

Custom product pages

Custom product pages are different — they are not split-tested against your default. Each custom page gets a unique URL that you attach to a specific campaign or referral. You can have up to 35 custom pages per app with different screenshots, app previews, and promotional text. You measure them by comparing the conversion of the URL's traffic to the default. For a dedicated guide to CPPs see our custom product pages guide.

One-variable-at-a-time rule

Whichever surface you use, change one variable per test. If a test variant has new screenshots and a new icon and a new caption style, the result tells you nothing about which change drove the effect.

Localizing screenshots

App Store Connect allows a separate screenshot set per locale. Users in Japan see the Japanese screenshot set, users in France see French, users in storefronts you don't have screenshots for see the English (en-US) fallback.

Full localization of screenshots has two parts: (1) the captions are translated into the locale's language, and (2) the in-app UI shown in the screenshots is captured from the localized app. Captions-only localization (English UI with translated captions floating above it) is the common compromise and works okay for large Western locales but reads as a downgrade in CJK and Arabic markets.

Pragmatic approach for most apps: fully localize screenshots for the top 5 to 10 revenue locales (typically en-US, en-GB, de-DE, fr-FR, ja-JP, ko-KR, zh-Hans-CN, zh-Hant-TW, es-ES, pt-BR). For smaller locales, fall back to the English set unless a specific locale is strategically important.

For a deeper dive into the 40-locale workflow, see our localization guide.

What not to do

• Text-only marketing slides. Screenshots with no in-app UI — just a headline over a gradient — violate guideline 2.3.3 and get rejected. Even if they pass, they convert poorly.
• Generic device chrome from random marketing templates. If your screenshot shows an iPhone 12 frame in 2026, the set looks dated.
• Fake reviews or star ratings baked into the screenshot. Apple rejects these under 2.3.7 (misleading metadata).
• Busy backgrounds that swallow the UI. Heavy gradients, photo backgrounds, or complex patterns behind a screenshot make the actual app screen hard to read.
• Captions in tiny fonts. At thumbnail size (search results) your caption has to be legible or it's wasted space.
• Leading with a login or splash screen. Your first screenshot should show the app's most valuable surface, not a door to it.
• Using different screenshot styles per device class. If the iPhone set is full-bleed and the iPad set is framed with different captions, users switching between them notice the disconnect.

Tools that help

The practical screenshot workflow involves: capturing raw frames from the iOS Simulator or a device, exporting at every required dimension, applying consistent captions and framing, uploading to App Store Connect per locale and per device class, and reordering.

Doing all of that by hand is tedious. AppConsul's Store Assets Generator (Pro) takes raw screenshots, lets you frame, caption, and position them in a unified editor, and bulk-exports at every required size for every locale. It also supports AI-assisted caption translation based on your existing description and keywords, so you're not translating "Dashboard" as a standalone word without context. For the raw dimensions reference, see our screenshot size reference tool.

Frequently asked questions

What is the current required iPhone screenshot size in 2026?

iPhone 6.9-inch display screenshots at 1320×2868 (portrait) or 2868×1320 (landscape). This corresponds to iPhone 16 Pro Max resolution and is the primary iPhone display class in App Store Connect.

How many screenshots per device class?

Up to 10 per device class per locale. Up to 3 app preview videos per locale (videos display first if present).

Do I need every device class?

iPhone 6.9-inch is required for iPhone apps. iPad Pro 13-inch is required for iPad apps. Older display classes are optional — Apple scales the primary size to smaller displays automatically unless you override with device-specific assets.

Framed or frameless?

No Apple rule either way. Framed tends to read as more polished for utility and professional apps; frameless maximizes pixel use for games and visual apps. Test.

Can I A/B test?

Yes, via Product Page Optimization (controlled test, up to 3 treatments) or custom product pages (unique URLs per campaign, up to 35 pages). One variable per test.

Should I localize?

Yes for revenue-relevant locales. Full localization for the top 5-10, English fallback for the rest is a common pattern.

How long should an app preview be?

15-30 seconds allowed; 15-20 seconds performs best. Auto-muted, so the video must work without audio.