How to Make App Store Screenshots: A Step-by-Step Guide
From raw simulator captures to a store-ready set in every size and language, in six steps.
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Your screenshots are the first real look people get at your app. Most visitors decide in a few seconds whether to download, and they decide by scrolling your images, not by reading your description. The good news: you don't need a designer to make a set that converts. You need a plan, clean captures and a consistent layout.
1. Decide what each screenshot has to say
Before you open any tool, write one sentence per screenshot. Each one should sell a single benefit, in the order a new user cares about. A simple structure that works for most apps:
- The core promise. What the app does for me, in five words or fewer.
- The main feature that delivers that promise.
- A second feature or the moment people love most.
- Proof: ratings, awards, user count, press. Only use numbers you can back up.
- Customisation, sync, privacy or pricing reassurance, whatever removes the last doubt.
Write these as benefits, not feature names. "Plan your week in 2 minutes" beats "Calendar view". Keep them short: on a phone screen a headline longer than about six words becomes hard to read.
2. Capture clean screens
Take screenshots from the simulator or a real device at the highest resolution you can. Use realistic but tidy data: real-looking names, round numbers, no lorem ipsum, no debug banners. A few practical tips:
- Set the status bar to a clean state: full battery, strong signal and a neat time such as 9:41.
- Fill lists with enough items to look alive, but not so many that the screen becomes noise.
- Hide personal data and test accounts.
- Capture both light and dark mode if your app supports both; you may want to use one of them consistently.
3. Pick a layout and stick to it
Consistency makes a set look professional. Use the same background style, the same font and the same headline position on every screenshot. Most top apps use one of three patterns: the headline above a device frame, a full-bleed screen with a short caption, or a panoramic background that flows across screenshots.
Our template gallery has layouts for each pattern, grouped by category, such as productivity, games and finance. Starting from a template saves the hours you would spend on spacing and type.
4. Write headlines people can read in a second
- Lead with a verb or the outcome: "Track every expense", "Sleep better tonight".
- Use the words your users use. If they search for "budget", don't call it "financial planning".
- Make the headline large. It has to be readable as a thumbnail in search results.
- Put your most important keyword in the first screenshots' captions; it helps people recognise that the app matches what they searched for.
Stuck on wording? StoreAppScreens Pro can write the headlines for you from one sentence about your app, and translate them into 39 languages.
5. Export every required size
The App Store needs at least the iPhone 6.9 inch set, plus iPad 13 inch if your app runs on iPad. Google Play needs phone screenshots and a feature graphic. All sizes are listed in our screenshot size guide. Exporting each size by hand is where most of the time goes, so use a tool that renders all of them from one design.
6. Localise, upload and test
Translated screenshots can lift downloads noticeably in non-English markets, because people trust an app that speaks their language. Read our localisation guide for what to translate and how. Then upload: in App Store Connect you drop the files into each language and display size; on Google Play you upload them in the store listing.
Finally, measure. Apple's Product Page Optimization and Google Play's store listing experiments let you test two sets against each other. Change one thing at a time, the first screenshot or the headline style, and keep the winner.
A faster way
StoreAppScreens does steps 3 to 6 in one place: pick a template, drop your captures in, write or generate headlines, and export every store size for every language in one ZIP. With Pro you can send the screenshots straight to App Store Connect. The free plan covers one project in English, so you can try the whole flow before paying.
Next, read the screenshot best practices for the details that separate a good set from a great one.