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How many screenshot sizes does the App Store require?

Verified against Apple, App Store Connect Help on

The answer you will usually see

You need a separate screenshot set for every iPhone and iPad display size, which usually means six to eight uploads per language.

Why it is wrong: App Store Connect lists the smaller sizes as optional and states in its own documentation that scaled screenshots from the larger display are used when the accepted sizes are not provided. The six-to-eight-uploads answer describes how submission worked before Apple added that fallback, and it survives because older tutorials, forum answers, and screenshot-generator presets were all built around it.

Which sizes are actually required?

Exactly two, and only if your app runs on that hardware. An iPhone-only app needs one set.

On iPad the requirement is stated plainly. The 13-inch slot carries the label "Required if app runs on iPad."

On iPhone it is phrased the other way round, and this catches people out. The 6.9-inch slot carries no requirement label at all. The label sits on the 6.5-inch slot instead: "Required if app runs on iPhone and screenshots for 6.9" display aren't provided."

So Apple never says "6.9-inch is required". It says the older 6.5-inch set becomes required if you do not supply the 6.9-inch one. The obligation is to ship one iPhone set, and the 6.9-inch set is what discharges it.

The 6.9-inch slot accepts three portrait sizes, any of which is valid:

  • 1260 x 2736
  • 1290 x 2796
  • 1320 x 2868

What happens to the sizes you skip?

Apple scales down from the next size up, and the chain is more specific than most people assume:

  • 6.5-inch falls back to scaled 6.9-inch screenshots
  • 6.3-inch falls back to scaled 6.5-inch screenshots, not 6.9-inch
  • 12.9-inch iPad falls back to scaled 13-inch screenshots

That middle step is the detail worth knowing. If you upload a 6.9-inch set and nothing else, the 6.3-inch listing is showing a scaled copy of a scaled copy.

When is uploading extra sizes worth it?

When the composition breaks at a different aspect ratio, or when you want different copy for a different device class. A caption sized for a 6.9-inch canvas can crowd the frame once it is scaled into a 6.3-inch slot, and an iPad set usually deserves its own layout rather than a downscaled phone set.

Otherwise the two required sets are the whole job, and every extra size is maintenance you repeat on the next release.

How many screenshots per size?

One to ten, in .jpeg, .jpg or .png. Apple gives no guidance beyond that range, so how many to use is your call rather than a rule.

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