Storeboard/Guides/Seven screenshot mistakes

Seven screenshot mistakes that cost you installs

Design 16 July 2026 · 6 min read

Your screenshots get about three seconds and two images. Almost every mistake below comes from forgetting that.

1. Treating all ten as equal

You can upload ten screenshots per device per language. Only the first two or three show up in search results — and most people never tap through to see the rest.

So screenshot one isn't "the first of ten." It's the whole pitch. If someone saw only that image, would they understand what your app does and why it's better? Images 4–10 are for the minority who are already interested; don't put your best argument there.

2. Captions that describe the UI

"Dashboard view." "Settings screen." "Home tab." These describe what a screenshot is, which the screenshot already communicates. They spend your most valuable words saying nothing.

Captions should say what the person gets. Not "Sleep timer" but "Falls asleep before you do." Not "Export options" but "Every size the App Store wants, in one click." The device image shows the what; the caption's job is the why.

3. Text sized for your monitor, not their phone

You design on a 27-inch display at 100%. A shopper sees your screenshot as a thumbnail a couple of centimetres wide, in a scrolling list, one-handed, possibly outdoors.

Caption text should be enormous — far bigger than feels comfortable while you're designing. The test: shrink your screenshot to thumbnail size and look at it from arm's length. If you can't read the caption, neither can anyone else. Most screenshots fail this badly.

4. Feature lists instead of a story

Ten screenshots, ten unrelated features, no order. It reads like a settings menu.

The sets that convert tell a small story: here's the problem → here's the thing that fixes it → here's what your life looks like after. Even three images in that order beat ten disconnected feature shots, because the person scrolling is deciding whether you understand their problem, not auditing your functionality.

5. English screenshots in every market

The most expensive mistake on this list, and the most common. Each localization has its own screenshot set. Ship English to Japan and a Japanese shopper reads your pitch in a language they may not speak — while your localized competitor speaks to them directly.

The captions are usually a dozen short phrases. That's not a translation project; it's an afternoon. When it's worth it →

6. Looking exactly like the template

Every screenshot tool ships the same default: device frame tilted, bold caption above, gradient behind. It looks fine. It also looks like everything else in your category, because your competitors used the same default.

In a crowded category this is worse than a conversion problem — visual sameness is one of the things App Review weighs when deciding whether a listing looks like spam under Guideline 4.3. Looking like yourself is both a marketing and a compliance strategy.

7. Never looking at the export

The unglamorous one. Captions overflow at other pixel sizes. German wraps to three lines and collides with the device. A translated caption disappears off the edge in a language you don't read.

Look at every language, at every size, before uploading. You don't need to read Korean to see that something is broken.

The one-line version

Write the first screenshot as though it's the only one, make the caption twice as big as feels right, say what the person gets rather than what the screen is called, and show it to them in their own language. That's most of the value on this page.

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