App Store screenshot resolution: pixels, not DPI

Apple specifies screenshots in pixels, not DPI. Here are the numbers, where they come from, and the format rules that fail an upload before a human ever sees it.

Published: 27 August 2026 · Last reviewed: 12 October 2026

"Resolution" here means pixel dimensions

Most of the confusion around this question comes from a word borrowed from print. In a print workflow, resolution is a density: dots per inch, meaningful only once you also state a physical size. On the App Store there is no physical size, so density is meaningless. There are only pixels.

Concretely: a PNG can carry a pHYs chunk and a JPEG can carry JFIF density fields declaring 72, 144 or 300 DPI. App Store Connect does not read them. A 1179 × 2556 image is a 1179 × 2556 image whatever its metadata claims, and re-tagging a file to "144 DPI" in an image editor changes nothing at all about whether it will be accepted.

So the only question worth answering is: how many pixels wide and tall?

Where the iPhone numbers come from

Each figure is a screen size in points multiplied by its scale factor. That arithmetic is stable even when Apple changes which sets it demands:

These are device sizes, not upload slots. A phone can measure 6.7 inches across and still be uploaded into the 6.9-inch class: Apple merged the two, and the physical size of the handset did not change with it.

Landscape screenshots are the same figures with the axes swapped: 2796 × 1290, and so on. If your app supports both orientations you still upload one orientation per slot: you do not have to provide both.

And the iPad numbers

Same method, but iPads run at 2× rather than 3×:

Check which sets are currently mandatory

The arithmetic above does not move. Which sets App Store Connect insists on has moved several times, most recently in October 2026, when the required iPhone set became the 6.3-inch class. Read Apple's current specification page before an upload rather than trusting any third-party list, this one included. What follows is how the requirement has behaved in practice, not a promise about next quarter.

Why two sets cover the catalogue

App Store Connect scales the required set down into the smaller slots: Apple says you “only need to provide screenshots for the highest required resolution”, and for iPhone that is now the 6.3-inch class (“iPhone with Dynamic Island (medium display)”). The 6.9 and 6.5-inch slots fill only from each other, so a second set at 6.9 inches covers the largest phones. Two caveats before you lean on scaling:

• Scaling is not cropping. Aspect ratio is preserved, so nothing is cut, but fine detail softens. Anything below roughly 28 px in the source reads as mush after a downscale.
• Aspect ratios differ slightly between classes. 1290 × 2796 is 1:2.167 and 1242 × 2688 is 1:2.164. Close enough that the store copes; far enough that a design pinned hard to the edge shifts by a pixel or two.

How many, and in what order

You can upload up to ten screenshots per device class, and the order you upload them is the order shoppers see. That matters more than any resolution decision on this page: on a phone-sized product page, most people never scroll past the first two or three images, so the first frame should carry the whole argument on its own.

Localisation multiplies the work rather than the resolution. Each localisation can carry its own set at the same pixel sizes, and a localisation with no set of its own falls back to another. Deciding early whether you will localise screenshots is worth doing, because it is the difference between producing one set and producing twelve, and it is the reason teams that expect to localise build their screens from a template rather than by hand.

The format rules, which fail before review

These are checked mechanically at upload. None of them require a human:

• PNG or JPEG. Not HEIC, not WebP, not TIFF.
• RGB colour space. A CMYK export out of a print tool is refused.
• No alpha channel. The most common single cause. A PNG exported with transparency fails even when nothing in it looks transparent.
• 8 bits per channel, which is every design tool's default. There is no benefit to 16-bit here.
• Exact pixel dimensions for the slot. Off by one pixel is off.

Producing exact pixels

Two habits remove almost all of the pain. First, design on a canvas that divides cleanly into the target so the export is one multiplication rather than a resample of an already-resampled layout. Second, verify the file rather than trusting the exporter. On macOS, without installing anything:

sips -g pixelWidth -g pixelHeight -g space -g hasAlpha shot.png

You want the two dimensions exactly, space: RGB, and hasAlpha: no. If alpha is present, re-export flattened onto an opaque background; exporting as JPEG also removes it, since the format has no alpha channel to begin with.

Tools that draw on the device itself skip the resize. My Larp Wallet opens on your own phone and you screenshot it there, so the file comes out at that phone's native resolution: 1179 × 2556 on a 393 pt screen at 3×, with nothing to resize afterwards. Run the sips check above anyway. The size is your phone's, and not every phone's is on Apple's list.

The mistake worth naming: resizing an already-exported screenshot up to a larger slot. Upscaling adds no detail, and it softens exactly the elements (small type, hairlines, icon edges) that make a screen look real. If you need a larger set, re-export at the larger size from the source, or build at the largest size once and let the store scale down.

The short version

1. Ignore DPI. It is not read.
2. Build at 1206 × 2622 for iPhone (the required 6.3-inch set) and, if you ship iPad, 2064 × 2752.
3. Add a 6.9-inch set (1320 × 2868) for the largest phones.
4. Export PNG, RGB, no alpha, exact dimensions.
5. Verify the file before uploading, not after the rejection.

The full per-class reference, including which sets have historically been required, is in App Store screenshot sizes for iPhone.

Questions

What resolution should App Store screenshots be?

They are specified in pixel dimensions, and DPI is ignored entirely. Upload iPhone screenshots at one of the accepted pixel sizes for the display class rather than worrying about DPI.

Does 72 or 144 DPI matter?

No. App Store Connect reads pixel dimensions only. A file's DPI metadata has no effect on whether it is accepted.

Written by My Larp Wallet, a crypto wallet app simulator: a mockup that opens on your phone, never a real wallet. For your own app’s screenshots, shoot your build; where a wallet mockup fits, and where it does not.