Most indie apps translate their store description and stop there. But on the App Store and Google Play, screenshots do most of the selling: users skim them in two or three seconds and decide. If they show English captions to someone browsing in Japanese or German, you are leaving conversion on the table — even when the app itself is localized.
The good news: localizing screenshots doesn't need a designer or a week. Here's a workflow you can finish in one afternoon.
1. Pick your 10 markets (don't do 40)
Start where revenue per download is high and English penetration is lower. A practical first ten:
| Market | Locale | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | ja | High ARPU, strong preference for native-language UI |
| Germany | de-DE | Largest EU market, high willingness to pay |
| France | fr-FR | Big, under-served by indie apps |
| Brazil | pt-BR | Huge download volume |
| Spain + LatAm | es-ES / es-MX | One language, many stores |
| South Korea | ko | High ARPU, mobile-first |
| China (Taiwan/HK) | zh-Hant | Paying iOS users |
| Italy | it | Solid EU market |
| Netherlands | nl-NL | High English skill, but native captions still win |
| Turkey | tr | Fast-growing, low competition |
Check your own App Store Connect → Analytics → Territories first: if you already get organic downloads from a country, localize that one before anything on this list.
2. Know the text-length traps
Your English caption "Track habits in seconds" won't stay that short.
- German runs 20–35% longer and loves compound words ("Gewohnheitsverfolgung"). Captions that fit in one line in English wrap into three. Leave ~30% horizontal slack or allow auto-shrinking.
- French, Spanish, Portuguese add 15–25%.
- Japanese, Chinese, Korean are shorter in characters but need a larger font size to stay legible, and line breaks must not split words awkwardly (Japanese has no spaces — break on phrase boundaries, not anywhere).
- Fonts: your Latin display font almost certainly has no CJK glyphs. Pick a fallback (Noto Sans JP/KR/SC/TC) deliberately instead of letting the renderer choose.
- Keep captions to 3–6 words. Short copy localizes better and reads faster everywhere.
3. Get the sizes right
App Store Connect currently requires only the largest sizes; smaller ones are scaled down:
- iPhone 6.9": 1320 × 2868 (or 1290 × 2796 for 6.7") — portrait
- iPad 13": 2064 × 2752 — if you ship on iPad
- Up to 10 screenshots per locale; the first 3 matter most (they show in search results).
Google Play: 16:9 or 9:16, min 320 px, max 3840 px per side, 2–8 screenshots per device type. A 1080 × 1920 set works fine.
Tip: design once at 1320 × 2868; downscale for Play rather than maintaining two masters.
4. Translate captions properly
Machine translation is fine as a first draft, but marketing copy needs a pass:
- Write captions as benefits, not features ("Sleep better" > "Sleep tracking module").
- Translate, then shorten — ask for the shortest natural phrasing.
- If you can, have one native speaker skim each locale for 5 minutes (friends, users, a Discord). They will catch the one embarrassing line.
5. Generate the sets
Doing this by hand in Figma means 10 locales × 5 screenshots × 2 platforms = 100 frames to edit and export. This is where I use ScreenParcel, a small web tool I built for exactly this:
- Upload your existing English screenshots.
- It detects the caption text, translates it into 30+ languages, and re-renders it with length-aware sizing and proper CJK fonts.
- You review/edit each locale, then export a zip with folders per locale at App Store Connect and Play sizes.
It's free to try; a full release pack is $9 (or $19 for a 30-day pass if you ship often). If you prefer to stay in Figma, the checklist above still applies — just budget more time.
6. Upload and measure
- In App Store Connect, add each localization under the app version, drop in the screenshots, and submit with your next release (screenshots can't be changed without a new version on iOS — batch it).
- On Google Play, use Store listing experiments to A/B localized vs English screenshots per country. Run it 1–2 weeks.
- Watch product page conversion rate per territory in App Store Connect Analytics. A 10–30% lift in localized markets is common.
Checklist
- [ ] Picked markets from your own analytics + the list above
- [ ] Captions ≤ 6 words, benefit-led
- [ ] 30% slack for German, CJK fonts chosen
- [ ] 1320 × 2868 masters, Play set derived
- [ ] Native-speaker skim
- [ ] Shipped with the next release, conversion tracked per country
That's it — one afternoon, ten new storefronts that actually speak the user's language. If you try it, I'd love to hear which market moved the most.
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