How to Make App Store Screenshots: A Step-by-Step Guide (2026)

To make App Store screenshots, you plan a short story across the first three screens, capture clean screens from your app, write one benefit-led caption per screen, place each capture on a designed canvas (background, device frame, headline), export the exact pixel sizes App Store Connect and Google Play Console accept, and upload them in the order you want people to see them. The design step gets the attention, but the planning and the captions decide whether the set works.

This guide walks through each step in order, with the sizes, commands and copy patterns we use when building sets in Launch Shots. It covers both stores, and it's honest about the three ways to do the design work: a design tool, a generator, or a designer.

What App Store screenshots are (and where they show up)

App Store screenshots are the still images you upload in App Store Connect for each device size. They appear on your product page and, according to Apple's product page guidance, "the first one to three images will appear in search results when no app preview is available," depending on their orientation. That is why the first three matter more than the rest: many people decide from the search result without ever opening the listing.

On Google Play, screenshots sit below the feature graphic on the store listing and are reused across browse surfaces. Google's requirements are different in the details (count, aspect ratio, what text is allowed), so we cover both below.

Step 1: Plan the story before you open a design tool

A screenshot set is a short argument, not a feature gallery. Write it as a list of sentences first. If the sentences don't persuade, no amount of gradient will.

Decide what the first three screens say

The structure we see work most often for the first three:

1. Screen 1, the outcome. What someone gets from the app, in their words. "Know where every dollar went" rather than "Expense tracking".
2. Screen 2, the proof. The most convincing view of the app doing that job: the chart, the finished edit, the booked appointment.
3. Screen 3, the difference. The thing competing apps in your category don't do, or don't do as simply.

Screens 4 to 8 then cover individual features, one per screen, and optionally a trust screen (ratings, awards, press) near the end. Five to eight screens is a sensible range for most apps; Apple allows up to 10 per size and Google Play up to 8 per device type.

Write the list down

For a habit tracker, the plan might look like this:

If you only had the first three rows, could someone tell what the app does, why it's better and whether it's for them? If yes, move on. Our App Store screenshot best practices go deeper on ordering and screen count.

Step 2: Capture clean source screens

The raw captures are the material everything else is built on. Three things make them usable:

• Realistic, fictional data. Populate the app with believable names, numbers and content. Apple's App Review Guidelines, section 2.3.9, say you should "display fictional account information instead of data from a real person." Empty states and "Lorem ipsum" read as an unfinished app.
• A clean status bar. Full battery, full signal, a tidy time, no carrier name and no stray notifications.
• The highest resolution you can get. Capture on the largest simulator or device you have, so you only scale down.

iOS Simulator

Boot the largest iPhone simulator, then override the status bar and take the capture from Terminal:

xcrun simctl status_bar booted override --time "9:41" \
  --batteryState charged --batteryLevel 100 \
  --cellularBars 4 --wifiBars 3
xcrun simctl io booted screenshot today.png

A capture from an iPhone Pro Max-class simulator comes out at the device's native resolution, which lines up with the 6.9-inch sizes App Store Connect accepts. Use the iPad Pro 13-inch simulator for iPad captures.

Android Emulator

Android's System UI demo mode gives you the same clean status bar:

adb shell settings put global sysui_demo_allowed 1
adb shell am broadcast -a com.android.systemui.demo -e command enter
adb shell am broadcast -a com.android.systemui.demo -e command clock -e hhmm 0941
adb shell am broadcast -a com.android.systemui.demo -e command battery -e level 100 -e plugged false
adb shell am broadcast -a com.android.systemui.demo -e command notifications -e visible false
adb exec-out screencap -p > today.png

Google Play is stricter about the status bar than Apple: its preview asset guidance asks you to avoid service provider names or notifications in the status bar and to show full battery, Wi-Fi and signal icons.

Step 3: Write the captions

The caption (the headline above or below the device) is the part people actually read at thumbnail size. A few rules that hold up across categories:

• Lead with the outcome, not the feature name. "Split rent without the awkward texts" beats "Bill splitting".
• Keep it short. Aim for roughly 3 to 7 words, about 25 to 40 characters, so it stays legible when the screenshot is shown small in search.
• One idea per screen. If a caption needs "and", it's probably two screens.
• Match the screen underneath. The caption should describe what the capture shows, or the screen feels like decoration.
• Leave prices and claims out. Apple's guideline 2.3.7 says screenshots should not include prices, and Google Play's guidance lists words like "Best", "#1", "Free" and "Sale" among things screenshots must not contain.

We wrote a whole post on App Store screenshot copywriting if you want headline formulas and before/after rewrites.

Step 4: Design the screenshots

Design is where you turn a capture and a caption into a screenshot. Keep the system small so the set reads as one piece.

Canvas and layout

Work at the export size of the largest required device (see the table in step 5), portrait unless your app is landscape-only. A common layout is caption in the top 20 to 30% of the canvas, device below it, with the device allowed to bleed off the bottom edge so the UI is as large as possible.

Device frames

A frame tells people they're looking at a phone app. It also shrinks your UI. Use frames when the whole screen matters; drop them, or crop to a detail, when one element (a card, a chart) tells the story better. Google's guidance discourages device imagery in Play screenshots, so many teams ship frameless or cropped versions for Google Play.

Backgrounds and colour

Pick a brand colour, a neutral and one accent, and stop there. Solid colours or soft two-tone gradients keep the caption readable. Avoid busy photos behind text. If your app supports Dark Mode, Apple suggests including at least one screenshot that shows it.

Type

Use one bold display face for captions and, at most, one supporting face for small labels. Size captions so they're still readable when the screenshot is shown at a couple of hundred pixels wide; if you squint at a zoomed-out view and can't read it, make it bigger.

Three ways to do the design work

All three routes produce perfectly good screenshots. They differ in time, cost and control.

If you already live in Figma, it's a fine choice; our Launch Shots vs Figma comparison lays out where each one is faster. For a wider look at generators, see our roundup of the best App Store screenshot generators.

Step 5: Export the required sizes for App Store and Google Play

Exporting is where most avoidable upload errors happen. App Store Connect checks pixel dimensions exactly, and both stores reject images with transparency.

Apple's screenshot specifications say that if your UI is consistent across sizes, "you only need to provide screenshots for the highest required resolution" and App Store Connect scales them down. Our screenshot sizes reference keeps every dimension in one table.

Two Google Play details worth knowing before you export:

• The long side can't be more than twice the short side, so a raw 1080 × 2400 phone capture (a 20:9 screen) has to be placed on a 9:16 canvas rather than uploaded as is.
• To be eligible for promotion and recommendations, Google says apps need at least four screenshots at a minimum of 1080 px (1080 × 1920 portrait or 1920 × 1080 landscape).

Step 6: Upload and order your screenshots

App Store Connect

In App Store Connect, open your app, select the version in the sidebar, then under Product Page Information choose the App Previews and Screenshots tab. Pick the device tab, drag in your files, and reorder them so screen 1 is first. Use the language pop-up at the top right to upload localized sets, and View All Sizes in Media Manager to replace any scaled size with a tailored one.

Google Play Console

In Play Console, go to Grow users, then Store presence, then Main store listing, and add your feature graphic and screenshots in the Graphics section. You need at least two screenshots to publish.

Uploading by hand gets tedious once you have several languages. Tools like fastlane's deliver and supply can push screenshots from the command line, and Launch Shots can upload directly to App Store Connect and Google Play Console from the editor.

After launch: localize and test

Once the first set is live, the two changes that tend to matter most are localizing the first three screens for your biggest non-English markets (see how to localize App Store screenshots) and testing a different first screenshot with Apple's Product Page Optimization or Google Play's store listing experiments, covered in how to A/B test App Store screenshots.

The short version: a checklist

• First three screens written as outcome, proof, difference, and they make sense on their own
• Source captures at full resolution, clean status bar, fictional but realistic data
• One short, benefit-led caption per screen, no prices or "#1" claims
• One background system, one display font, consistent frame treatment
• Exports at exact sizes: 6.9-inch iPhone, 13-inch iPad if you support iPad, 9:16 Play phone, 1024 × 500 feature graphic
• PNG or JPEG, no transparency
• Uploaded in the intended order, in every language you support

If something looks off once it's live, our list of common app screenshot mistakes is a quick audit.