App Store Screenshot Localization Checklist: 12 Checks Before Release

Before a localized screenshot set goes live, check twelve things: the source copy, the locale you picked for each market, the meaning and fit of every translated headline, the language of the app UI inside the device, any words baked into the artwork, right-to-left text, and the upload itself. A translation tool can only help with a few of them, so most of the list is a person looking at finished images.

There's a reason to run the list even when nothing looks broken. Apple's localization help page says that when you add a language in App Store Connect, its screenshots default to the ones in your primary language. A German listing can go live with a translated description and English screenshots, and nothing in App Store Connect warns you about it. The checks below are grouped by when you'd run them: before translation, on the translated copy, on the rest of each image, and at upload. Each one is a yes or no question, so a teammate who doesn't read the language can still run most of the list and flag the slides that need a native reader.

Checks on the source set

1. Each English headline says one literal thing. Wordplay, idioms, and rhymes rarely survive translation. "Crush your to-do list" turns into a sentence about physically crushing something in several languages, and a pun on the app's name has no equivalent at all. Rewrite those headlines in plain English before anyone translates them, because a translator who gets a pun has to invent a new headline, and then nobody has reviewed the copy on that slide. The headline formulas page has patterns that state a benefit plainly and survive translation well.

2. The headline box has room to grow. German, Finnish, and Dutch use long compound words, and a translation that wraps fine in English can push a single word past the edge of the slide. Look at your English set and find the tightest headline. If it already fills its box edge to edge, shorten it now, since every translated version inherits that box.

3. You know which locale each market sees. Apple's App Store localizations table lists a default language for every storefront, and the defaults aren't always the obvious ones. Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Colombia default to Spanish (Mexico), so a Spanish (Spain) listing alone won't be the one most Latin American shoppers see. Switzerland defaults to German and also supports French and Italian. Belgium defaults to English (U.K.), with Dutch and French as additional languages, and the United States lists Spanish (Mexico), Chinese, Korean, and several other languages alongside English (U.S.). Pick locales from that table and your market list, then localize the screenshots for those locales first.

Checks on each translated headline

4. The translation means what the English meant. Have someone who reads the language check meaning, not word choice. A literal translation is the usual failure. "Your inbox, handled" goes to Spanish as "Tu bandeja de entrada, manejada", which is grammatical and sounds like a machine wrote it, where a person would write something closer to "Tu correo, en orden". A translation can also be accurate and still pitch the wrong benefit, so compare each slide's translated headline against what the app screen below it is showing.

5. Line breaks fall in sensible places. Read every slide at full size and look for a lone word on the last line, a compound word split across lines, or a Japanese or Chinese headline broken in the middle of a word. Japanese and Chinese don't separate words with spaces, so a layout that only wraps at spaces will break wherever the line runs out of room. Korean does use spaces between words, so a break inside a Korean word is a layout bug too.

6. The emphasized word is still the right word. Many sets color or bold one word of each headline. Word order changes in translation (German often moves the verb to the end of the clause), so the highlighted word in English may have no single counterpart. Check that the emphasis lands on the word that carries the benefit, or drop the emphasis on that slide.

7. Numbers, prices, and units are local. "$4.99 a month", "5 miles", and "Sunday reset" all need a decision per market. A price in a headline is risky anyway, because it has to match what the storefront charges in that currency. Convert units, use the local date and decimal format, and remove a price rather than show a wrong one.

Checks on the rest of the image

8. The app UI inside the device is in the same language as the headline. A Japanese headline above an English settings screen tells a shopper the app may not be translated. If your app is localized, capture the key screens again with the app running in that language. In Xcode you can set the app language under the scheme's Run options, or pass it at launch with xcrun simctl launch booted <bundle id> -AppleLanguages "(ja)" -AppleLocale ja_JP, then capture the same screens you used in English. If the app itself isn't localized yet, an English UI is honest, but say nothing in the headline that suggests otherwise.

9. No words are baked into the artwork. Badges, award ribbons, ratings text, sticky notes, and handwritten labels drawn into a background image stay in the original language when only the headlines are translated. Look past the headline on every slide for leftover English. Replace that art for the locale or remove it from the source set.

10. Right-to-left headlines read correctly. Arabic and Hebrew run right to left, but numbers and Latin brand names inside them still run left to right. A layout that wasn't built for this can put punctuation at the wrong end or reorder a product name and a number. Have a native reader check every Arabic and Hebrew slide, and if your app mirrors its interface in those languages, use screens captured in that mirrored state.

Checks at upload

11. Each set is in its own language listing. App Store Connect keeps a separate screenshot set for every localization on a version, so a correct English listing tells you nothing about the others. Open each localization and confirm that its screenshots are the localized files, not the primary-language copies Apple filled in when you added the language. If files ended up under the wrong language, the upload troubleshooting guide covers how to move them. Apple also lets each localization carry its own slide count, which the post on how many App Store screenshots to upload weighs up.

12. The final files pass a size check and appear in the intended order. Exported files sometimes come back at a different size or with an alpha channel after a round trip through a design tool. Drop each locale's files into the screenshot size checker, up to 10 PNG or JPEG files at a time, which inspects them in your browser and flags sizes and transparency App Store Connect won't accept. It doesn't resize anything or predict App Review. Then open the localized listing in App Store Connect's Media Manager and confirm the first three slides are the same story, in the same order, as your English listing.

Where Screenies fits

On a finished set, Screenies localization translates the headlines, swaps them into the set's saved layout, and re-renders each slide. A long translation is shrunk, down to 55% of the original size, to try to fit the English headline's space, and Japanese, Chinese, and Korean words are kept whole, but a translation that still doesn't fit renders anyway. Artwork, props, and the app screens stay as they were, so checks 2, 5, 8, and 9 still need your eyes, and a headline you want to reword can be edited on that locale's slide without spending credits. Translation costs 0.1 credits per screenshot per locale, as listed on pricing, and with a qualifying credit purchase each localized set can be uploaded to the matching language listing in App Store Connect, which needs that localization to already exist on the version.

Localization questions

If I translate the description, do I also have to translate the screenshots?

Apple doesn't require it. A new language starts with the primary language's screenshots, and the listing is valid that way. The cost is a product page where the text is in German and every image is in English, which is the gap this checklist exists to close.

Which Spanish should I pick for Latin America?

Spanish (Mexico). Apple's table lists it as the default for Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Colombia, and as an extra language in the United States. Spanish (Spain) is the default in Spain, so if you sell in both regions, add both and adjust the wording where the two differ.

Is machine translation good enough for screenshot headlines?

It's a usable first draft for short, literal headlines, and that's one more reason to fix idioms in check 1. Have a native reader approve every locale before release, because a headline is a few words of marketing copy and one odd word stands out more there than in a paragraph.

Should the app UI language match the headline on every slide?

Match it when the app ships in that language. If the app isn't localized yet, keep the real English UI rather than mocking up translated screens that don't exist, since App Review guideline 2.3.3 is about screenshots that depict the real app.

What do shoppers see in a country where none of my languages is the default?

Apple shows the localization that matches the shopper's language setting. If none matches, it uses the next most relevant localization, and in regions where none of your languages applies, the listing appears in your primary language. That fallback is why the primary-language set should still read well to someone outside your core market, with no slang or local references in its headlines.