iPad App Store Screenshots: Do You Need Them, and How to Make Good Ones

You need iPad App Store screenshots if your app supports iPadOS: Apple requires at least one screenshot for the 13-inch iPad display, at 2064 × 2752 px or 2048 × 2732 px (portrait, or the landscape equivalents). If your app is iPhone-only, you don't upload iPad screenshots at all. Good iPad screenshots are built from real iPad captures and laid out for the iPad's wider shape; a stretched or padded iPhone screenshot is a common reason for a metadata rejection.

Below: when iPad screenshots are required, the exact sizes, why reusing iPhone layouts doesn't work, portrait vs landscape, and what happens to iPhone-only apps on iPad.

When are iPad App Store screenshots required?

Apple's screenshot specifications list the required display sizes as at least one iPhone screenshot and, "if your app supports iPadOS," at least one screenshot for the iPad 13-inch display. An app supports iPadOS when its target includes iPad as a supported destination in Xcode, which is the case for universal apps and iPad-only apps.

If you add iPad support in an update, App Store Connect will ask for the iPad set before you can submit that version, so plan the screenshots alongside the iPad layout work rather than after.

iPad screenshot sizes: 13-inch and 12.9-inch

The 13-inch slot is the one you must fill. Apple scales it down for the smaller iPad slots unless you upload size-specific screenshots. These are the sizes as listed in Apple's specifications; our screenshot sizes reference has the iPhone and Google Play sizes next to them.

One practical consequence: a 2048 × 2732 set is accepted in both the 13-inch and the 12.9-inch slot, so if your source captures or templates are at 12.9-inch size, you don't need to redo them. If you're capturing fresh, the iPad Pro 13-inch (M4) simulator produces 2064 × 2752 captures directly. Like all App Store screenshots, iPad files must be .jpeg, .jpg or .png with no transparency, up to 10 per size.

Can you reuse your iPhone screenshots on iPad?

You can reuse the plan, not the pixels. There are two reasons.

The shape is completely different

A 6.9-inch iPhone screenshot is about 1:2.17 (1290 × 2796). A 13-inch iPad screenshot is 3:4 (2064 × 2752). Scaling an iPhone screenshot up to iPad height leaves wide empty bands on each side; scaling it to iPad width crops off most of the screen. Neither looks like an iPad app.

App Review checks it

Apple's guideline 2.3.3 says screenshots "should show the app in use." Developers regularly report rejections where the 13-inch iPad screenshots were iPhone images stretched or placed in an iPad frame, which App Review treats as not showing the app on iPad. We cover that rejection and how to reply to it in why Apple rejects App Store screenshots.

What to reuse

• The story and order. Same outcome, proof and differentiator in the first three.
• The captions. Same headlines, often set a little smaller relative to the canvas, because the canvas is wider.
• The visual system. Same background colours, fonts and frame style, so the two sets look like one brand.

What changes is the capture inside each screenshot and the layout around it.

How to design iPad screenshots that look like an iPad app

Capture real iPad screens

Run the app on the iPad Pro 13-inch simulator or a real iPad, with realistic demo data and a clean status bar. The same xcrun simctl status_bar override works on iPad simulators; our guide to clean simulator screenshots has the full command. If you already automate iPhone captures, add the iPad simulator to your device list; fastlane snapshot can capture both in one run.

Show what's better on iPad

iPad shoppers are deciding whether your app is good on a big screen, so show the layouts that use it:

• Sidebars and multi-column layouts (list on the left, detail on the right)
• Apple Pencil input; guideline 2.3.3 specifically allows overlays that demonstrate input mechanisms "such as an animated touch point or Apple Pencil"
• Keyboard and trackpad use, if your app has shortcuts or pointer support
• Larger canvases: a full spreadsheet, a whole week calendar, a drawing at real size

Lay out for a wide canvas

On a 3:4 canvas, a caption above a device leaves the device small. Two layouts that tend to work better: the iPad tilted or bleeding off one side with the caption beside or above it, or a frameless crop of the UI filling most of the canvas with a caption band at the top. Keep captions short; iPad screenshots are also shown small in search results.

If you design in Figma, set up a separate frame at 2064 × 2752 rather than resizing iPhone frames (see App Store screenshots in Figma). Generators handle this by exporting iPhone and iPad sizes from the same project; in Launch Shots, for example, iPad device frames and sizes sit alongside iPhone ones.

Landscape or portrait iPad screenshots?

Use the orientation people actually use your app in on iPad. Each device size is uploaded separately, so landscape iPad screenshots alongside portrait iPhone screenshots are perfectly normal.

One trade-off to keep in mind: Apple's product page guidance says the number of screenshots shown in search results (one to three) depends on orientation, and landscape screenshots show fewer at a time. A landscape set puts more weight on the first screenshot. Whichever you pick, keep every screenshot in a size the same orientation; a continuous or panoramic set in particular only works if they match.

Uploading the iPad set

In App Store Connect, open the app, select the version, and go to the App Previews and Screenshots tab under Product Page Information. Choose the iPad device tab and drag in your 13-inch files in the order you want them shown. That one upload covers every iPad size through scaling.

If you want a tailored set for a smaller iPad (for example, because a sidebar collapses on 11-inch screens and the scaled 13-inch shots no longer match what people see), use View All Sizes in Media Manager to upload screenshots for that size specifically. For each localization, switch the language in the pop-up at the top right and repeat; a localized iPhone set with an English-only iPad set is easy to miss and looks unfinished to iPad shoppers in that market.

If you ship many languages, uploading by hand gets slow. fastlane's deliver can push screenshots per device and language from a folder structure, and Launch Shots can upload directly to App Store Connect from the editor.

What happens to iPhone-only apps on iPad?

An iPhone-only app can usually still be installed on an iPad, where it runs in a scaled iPhone-sized window. You don't upload iPad screenshots for it, and iPad shoppers see your iPhone screenshots. That's acceptable, but it's not a great experience, and Apple's App Review Guidelines say in 2.4.1: "iPhone apps should run on iPad whenever possible."

iPhone and iPad apps can also be offered on Macs with Apple silicon, which you control in App Store Connect under the app's availability settings. That listing uses your existing iPhone or iPad screenshots too, which is another reason to keep the iPad set honest and current.

If you're deciding whether to add iPad support at all, the screenshot work is small compared with the layout work. The question is whether your app is genuinely better on a big screen. If it is, a proper iPad set is one of the clearer ways to show it.

The short version

• Supports iPadOS? Upload at least one 13-inch iPad screenshot; up to 10
• Sizes: 2064 × 2752 or 2048 × 2732 portrait, or the landscape equivalents; smaller iPad slots scale from these
• Capture on the iPad Pro 13-inch simulator or a real iPad, never stretch iPhone shots
• Reuse the story, captions and visual system; rebuild the layout for a 3:4 canvas
• Show what's better on iPad: multi-column layouts, Pencil, keyboard, bigger canvases
• Pick the orientation people use on iPad, and keep it consistent within the set

For the end-to-end process, including the iPhone set, start with how to make App Store screenshots.