Localizing your store listing is one of the cheapest growth levers an app has. People are measurably more likely to install when the listing speaks their language — and screenshots are the part they look at first. Yet most localized listings stop at the description and leave English screenshots in place, which is backwards: the description is read by few people, the first two screenshots by nearly everyone.
This guide covers what to localize, in what order, and the store mechanics that decide what each user actually sees.
How the stores decide which screenshots to show
Both stores pick a listing language from the user's device and store settings, then fall back when you have not provided that language.
- App Store: each localization in App Store Connect has its own screenshot sets. A localization you add without screenshots shows your primary language's screenshots. A language you have not added at all shows the primary listing entirely.
- Google Play: each translation in Play Console can carry its own graphics, including the feature graphic. Where a language has no graphics of its own, Play shows your default language's graphics.
The practical consequence: you can localize the text of a listing without touching screenshots, and nothing breaks — users just see English artwork under translated text. That is a reasonable first step, but it leaves most of the benefit unclaimed.
Choose markets by evidence, not by list length
Translating into thirty languages at once produces thirty sets of assets you then have to keep in sync with every release. Start with two or three markets where you already have a signal:
- Where installs already come from without any localization. Both consoles break down acquisition by country.
- Where your category is large relative to the competition in that language.
- Where your app already works well — localized screenshots for an app whose interface is still English-only set an expectation the app then breaks.
Add markets one or two at a time, and keep the set you can genuinely maintain.
What actually needs translating
A screenshot has three kinds of text, and they deserve different treatment:
- Captions — the headline and label you add above or beside the device. Always translate these; they are your sales copy.
- The app interface inside the device frame. Ideally, capture each language from the app running in that language. If your app is not localized yet, keep the interface in English and do not pretend otherwise.
- Text baked into decorative artwork — avoid it. Every word inside an image is a word you will need to re-draw per language.
This is the strongest argument for keeping captions as live text rather than flattening them into the screenshot image: a caption that is text can be swapped per language in seconds, while one that is pixels needs a designer for every market.
Translate the message, not the words
Store captions are short, punchy and full of idioms — exactly the kind of text literal translation ruins. A few rules that hold up:
- Translate the benefit, then rewrite it to fit. "Never miss a deadline" may become something closer to "always on time" in another language, and that is fine.
- Expect length to change. German and Finnish captions often run noticeably longer than English; Chinese and Japanese often shorter. Leave room in the layout, and let the caption size adapt rather than truncating.
- Have a native speaker review the first two screenshots at minimum. Machine translation is a fine first draft; it is a poor final one for marketing copy.
- Check searchable text too. The App Store keyword field and Play's full description are localized separately, and keywords rarely translate one-to-one.
Right-to-left languages
Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Urdu read right to left, and a listing in those languages should feel native:
- Caption text aligns right, and the reading order of multi-screen layouts flips — the "first" screenshot is the rightmost one in a connected design.
- Directional imagery should mirror: arrows, progress bars, timelines.
- Do not mirror logos, the device frame, photos, or the app's own interface unless the app itself mirrors in that language.
Getting this wrong is immediately visible to a native reader and makes the listing feel like an afterthought.
Keep localized sets in sync
The ongoing cost of localization is maintenance. Each time you change a screenshot, every language needs the same change. Some habits that keep that manageable:
- One design, many languages. Keep a single layout per screen and swap only the text per language, so a design change is made once.
- Translate after the copy is final for a release, not during design.
- Export every language in one pass and spot-check the first two screenshots of each at thumbnail size, which is where truncated or overflowing captions show up.
- Retire languages you cannot maintain. An out-of-date localized listing showing last year's interface is worse than a current English one.
A sensible order of work
1. Localize the listing text — title, subtitle or short description, keywords — for your top two or three markets. 2. Localize the first two screenshot captions for those markets and review them with a native speaker. 3. Capture the in-device screens from the localized app, once the app itself is localized. 4. Localize the rest of the screenshots and the feature graphic. 5. Measure. Both stores let you compare conversion by country before and after, and Play supports formal store-listing experiments per language.
Localization pays off in proportion to how well it is maintained. Two languages kept current will do more for you than ten left to drift.