App Store screenshots and previews without a designer

April 14, 2026

When nobody owns marketing visuals, you can still ship: capture the UI in the Simulator, treat App Store Connect as a checklist of pixel sizes, and re-encode preview video and re-size screenshots.

The goal is to get accepted media.

App Store Connect Requirements for screenshots

Up to 10 screenshots.

Phone 6.5“ Display

Orientation	Value
Portrait	1242×2688px or 1284×2778px
Landscape	2688×1242px or 2778×1284px

iPad 13“ Display

Orientation	Value
Portrait	2064×2752px or 2048×2732px
Landscape	2752×2064px or 2732×2048px

Screenshot specifications

App Store Connect Requirements for previews

Up to 3 app previews.

Connect is strict about frame size and audio. A straight Simulator recording often fails validation; normalize once against (App preview specifications).

Requirement	Value
Maximum file size	500 MB
Minimum length	15 seconds
Maximum length	30 seconds
Phone (portrait)	886×1920 px
Phone (landscape)	1920×886 px
iPad (portrait)	1200×1600 px
iPad (landscape)	1600×1200 px

Screenshots

Capture with the Simulator device via ⌘S (File → Save Screen).

Phone Portrait 1284 × 2778:

sips -z 2778 1284 portrait.png --out portrait-1284x2778.png

Phone Landscape 2778 × 1284:

sips -z 1284 2778 landscape.png --out landscape-2778x1284.png

iPad Portrait 2048 × 2732:

sips -z 2732 2048 portrait.png --out portrait-2048x2732.png

iPad Landscape 2732 × 2048:

sips -z 2048 2732 landscape.png --out landscape-2688x1242.png

App Previews

Capture with the Simulator device via ⌘R (File → Record Screen).

#!/bin/bash

# make_appstore_preview_phone.sh recording.mov
INPUT="$1"
OUTPUT="${INPUT%.*}_preview.mov"

ffmpeg -i "$INPUT" \
    -t 30 -f lavfi -i anullsrc=channel_layout=stereo:sample_rate=44100 \
    -vf "scale=886:1920:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=886:1920:(886-iw)/2:(1920-ih)/2" \
    -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -preset faster \
    -c:a aac -b:a 128k \
    -shortest \
    "$OUTPUT" -y

echo "Done: $OUTPUT"