Quick answer
An Apple App Store preview video must be 15 to 30 seconds, 30 fps max, in .mov, .m4v, or .mp4 (H.264 or ProRes 422 HQ), and sized to the device — 886×1920 portrait for the 6.9-inch iPhone — with up to 3 previews per device size. Google Play doesn't host the file at all: you paste a public or unlisted YouTube link, keep it under 30 seconds, enable embedding, and add a feature graphic first. The two stores work completely differently, so plan for both below.
What are the exact App Store app preview video specs?
Let me put the App Store numbers up front, because Apple is strict and a wrong spec gets your upload bounced.
| Spec | Requirement | |------|-------------| | Length | 15–30 seconds (hard limits) | | Frame rate | 30 fps max, progressive | | Formats | .mov, .m4v, .mp4 | | Codec | H.264 (10–12 Mbps) or ProRes 422 HQ | | Audio | Stereo AAC, 256 kbps, 44.1 or 48 kHz | | Max file size | 500 MB (H.264) | | Count | up to 3 previews per device size |
The resolution depends on the device. For the 6.9-inch iPhone (think iPhone 17 Pro Max), portrait is 886×1920 and landscape is 1920×886 — and the same 886×1920 portrait number carries down through the 6.5-inch, 6.3-inch, and 6.1-inch sizes too. Older 5.5-inch and 4-inch phones use 1080×1920. iPad previews land at 1200×1600 portrait for the modern sizes.
The two rules that trip people up: the 15-second floor and the 30-second ceiling. App Store Connect rejects anything under 15 or over 30, full stop. There's no "close enough." I once trimmed a preview to what I thought was a punchy 12 seconds, and Apple wouldn't take it — I had to pad it back up. Aim for the 20-25 second zone; it gives you room to actually show the app without dragging.
Apple also wants the footage to be real. The preview is supposed to be captured in-app, not a slick motion-graphics ad with no actual UI. You can add a few text overlays and a title card, but the bulk has to be the app doing its thing. The official numbers live on Apple's app preview specifications page, and it's worth bookmarking since they add device sizes every year.
| Spec | Requirement | |------|-------------| | Length | 15–30 seconds (hard limits) | | Frame rate | 30 fps max, progressive | | Formats | .mov, .m4v, .mp4 | | Codec | H.264 (10–12 Mbps) or ProRes 422 HQ | | Audio | Stereo AAC, 256 kbps, 44.1 or 48 kHz | | Max file size | 500 MB (H.264) | | Count | up to 3 previews per device size |
The resolution depends on the device. For the 6.9-inch iPhone (think iPhone 17 Pro Max), portrait is 886×1920 and landscape is 1920×886 — and the same 886×1920 portrait number carries down through the 6.5-inch, 6.3-inch, and 6.1-inch sizes too. Older 5.5-inch and 4-inch phones use 1080×1920. iPad previews land at 1200×1600 portrait for the modern sizes.
The two rules that trip people up: the 15-second floor and the 30-second ceiling. App Store Connect rejects anything under 15 or over 30, full stop. There's no "close enough." I once trimmed a preview to what I thought was a punchy 12 seconds, and Apple wouldn't take it — I had to pad it back up. Aim for the 20-25 second zone; it gives you room to actually show the app without dragging.
Apple also wants the footage to be real. The preview is supposed to be captured in-app, not a slick motion-graphics ad with no actual UI. You can add a few text overlays and a title card, but the bulk has to be the app doing its thing. The official numbers live on Apple's app preview specifications page, and it's worth bookmarking since they add device sizes every year.
How is Google Play's promo video different?
Here's where people get caught out: Google Play doesn't host your video file at all. You don't upload an MP4. You paste a YouTube link.
That one difference changes everything about the workflow. On Play, your promo video is a YouTube video that the store embeds. So the rules are mostly YouTube's rules plus a few Play-specific ones:
- Use a full YouTube video URL — not a playlist, not a channel, not a shortened youtu.be link. The full watch URL. - Visibility must be public or unlisted. A private video won't render. - Enable embedding in the video's YouTube settings, or the Play Store can't show the player. - Keep it short — under 30 seconds is the practical target, since Play autoplays roughly the first 30 seconds on mute. - Disable ads on the video. A promo video with a pre-roll ad isn't allowed. - You need a feature graphic uploaded before the video will show on your listing.
One more thing that bites game and app developers: landscape vs portrait. Google prefers landscape for the video to be eligible for some recommended placements, and a portrait video gets black bars stuffed on the sides. If you're a portrait-only app, you either accept the bars or design a separate landscape cut that uses the side space.
And unlike Apple's three-previews-per-device, Play gives you one video for the whole listing. So your single YouTube clip has to do all the work across every device. Google spells out the link rules on its Play Console video help page, which is the source I'd trust over any third-party blog.
The short version: Apple wants a tightly-spec'd file you upload per device; Google wants a single embedded YouTube link that plays everywhere. Don't assume one set of rules covers both — I did, and my first Play "upload" failed because I kept looking for a file picker that doesn't exist.
That one difference changes everything about the workflow. On Play, your promo video is a YouTube video that the store embeds. So the rules are mostly YouTube's rules plus a few Play-specific ones:
- Use a full YouTube video URL — not a playlist, not a channel, not a shortened youtu.be link. The full watch URL. - Visibility must be public or unlisted. A private video won't render. - Enable embedding in the video's YouTube settings, or the Play Store can't show the player. - Keep it short — under 30 seconds is the practical target, since Play autoplays roughly the first 30 seconds on mute. - Disable ads on the video. A promo video with a pre-roll ad isn't allowed. - You need a feature graphic uploaded before the video will show on your listing.
One more thing that bites game and app developers: landscape vs portrait. Google prefers landscape for the video to be eligible for some recommended placements, and a portrait video gets black bars stuffed on the sides. If you're a portrait-only app, you either accept the bars or design a separate landscape cut that uses the side space.
And unlike Apple's three-previews-per-device, Play gives you one video for the whole listing. So your single YouTube clip has to do all the work across every device. Google spells out the link rules on its Play Console video help page, which is the source I'd trust over any third-party blog.
The short version: Apple wants a tightly-spec'd file you upload per device; Google wants a single embedded YouTube link that plays everywhere. Don't assume one set of rules covers both — I did, and my first Play "upload" failed because I kept looking for a file picker that doesn't exist.
What makes a preview video actually convert?
Specs get the video accepted. They don't make anyone install. Here's what I've learned about the part that actually moves the conversion rate.
The first three seconds decide everything. Both stores autoplay your video on mute, and most people scroll past in a second or two. So you can't open with a logo splash and a slow fade. Open mid-action, on your strongest feature, with the benefit visible immediately. Treat second one like the lead screenshot — it has to win the glance.
Design for muted playback. The audio autoplays silent on both stores, so if your pitch depends on a voiceover, it's lost. Bake short text captions onto the footage — three to five words at a time, large and high-contrast — so a muted viewer still follows the story. I treat the captions as the real script and the audio as a bonus for the few who unmute.
Show the app, not a commercial. Apple literally requires real in-app footage, but it's good advice on Play too. People want to see what the app feels like to use, not a glossy ad with stock actors. Screen-record the actual flows — the satisfying ones — and let the product sell itself.
Keep one idea per video. Fifteen to thirty seconds is not enough to show eight features. Pick the single most compelling thing your app does and show it well. A focused 18-second clip beats a frantic 30-second feature dump every time.
Match the video to your screenshots. Your preview video sits right next to your screenshots in the carousel. If the video uses one color palette and device look while the screenshots use another, the listing feels disjointed. I keep the same backgrounds, frames, and headline style across both — I frame the screenshots in the PlayMockUp studio and pull the same palette and device frame into the video's title and end cards so the whole listing reads as one piece. For choosing the device shell your footage sits in, the device frame library has current phones, tablets, and laptops so the frame around your video matches the frames around your screenshots.
The video is the only asset on your listing that moves, so it grabs the eye first. Wasting that motion on a logo animation is the most common own-goal I see.
The first three seconds decide everything. Both stores autoplay your video on mute, and most people scroll past in a second or two. So you can't open with a logo splash and a slow fade. Open mid-action, on your strongest feature, with the benefit visible immediately. Treat second one like the lead screenshot — it has to win the glance.
Design for muted playback. The audio autoplays silent on both stores, so if your pitch depends on a voiceover, it's lost. Bake short text captions onto the footage — three to five words at a time, large and high-contrast — so a muted viewer still follows the story. I treat the captions as the real script and the audio as a bonus for the few who unmute.
Show the app, not a commercial. Apple literally requires real in-app footage, but it's good advice on Play too. People want to see what the app feels like to use, not a glossy ad with stock actors. Screen-record the actual flows — the satisfying ones — and let the product sell itself.
Keep one idea per video. Fifteen to thirty seconds is not enough to show eight features. Pick the single most compelling thing your app does and show it well. A focused 18-second clip beats a frantic 30-second feature dump every time.
Match the video to your screenshots. Your preview video sits right next to your screenshots in the carousel. If the video uses one color palette and device look while the screenshots use another, the listing feels disjointed. I keep the same backgrounds, frames, and headline style across both — I frame the screenshots in the PlayMockUp studio and pull the same palette and device frame into the video's title and end cards so the whole listing reads as one piece. For choosing the device shell your footage sits in, the device frame library has current phones, tablets, and laptops so the frame around your video matches the frames around your screenshots.
The video is the only asset on your listing that moves, so it grabs the eye first. Wasting that motion on a logo animation is the most common own-goal I see.
Do you even need an app preview video?
Honest answer: not always, and I'd rather you skip it than ship a bad one.
A weak, blurry, or confusing preview video can hurt you. It autoplays, it grabs attention, and if what it shows is muddled, you've spent your best real estate confusing people. A clean screenshot set with no video beats a messy video every time.
So here's how I decide. Make a video if your app has motion that's hard to convey in stills — a game, an animation tool, a fluid interaction, a before-and-after transformation. Motion is the whole point there, and a static screenshot can't capture it. Skip it (for now) if your app is mostly static screens — a utility, a reader, a form-based tool — where well-designed screenshots already tell the story. You can always add a video later.
There's also the effort math. A good preview video takes real time: capturing clean footage, editing to length, adding captions, exporting per device for Apple. If you're a solo developer launching this week, I'd put that time into nailing your screenshots and icon first, because those are required and they carry most of the conversion weight. The video is a strong second move, not a launch-day must.
When I shipped my first app, I skipped the video entirely and focused everything on eight captioned, framed screenshots. The listing converted fine. I added a preview video for version two, once I had footage worth showing, and it nudged the rate up a bit more. Order of operations: icon, then screenshots, then video.
If you do build one, capture your raw screens and flows the same way you would for screenshots — clean status bar, real data, no half-loaded states. The Play Store screenshot sizes guide covers the capture hygiene that applies equally to video frames, and the framing principles in how to make app screenshots that get downloads map almost one-to-one onto what makes a preview clip land.
A weak, blurry, or confusing preview video can hurt you. It autoplays, it grabs attention, and if what it shows is muddled, you've spent your best real estate confusing people. A clean screenshot set with no video beats a messy video every time.
So here's how I decide. Make a video if your app has motion that's hard to convey in stills — a game, an animation tool, a fluid interaction, a before-and-after transformation. Motion is the whole point there, and a static screenshot can't capture it. Skip it (for now) if your app is mostly static screens — a utility, a reader, a form-based tool — where well-designed screenshots already tell the story. You can always add a video later.
There's also the effort math. A good preview video takes real time: capturing clean footage, editing to length, adding captions, exporting per device for Apple. If you're a solo developer launching this week, I'd put that time into nailing your screenshots and icon first, because those are required and they carry most of the conversion weight. The video is a strong second move, not a launch-day must.
When I shipped my first app, I skipped the video entirely and focused everything on eight captioned, framed screenshots. The listing converted fine. I added a preview video for version two, once I had footage worth showing, and it nudged the rate up a bit more. Order of operations: icon, then screenshots, then video.
If you do build one, capture your raw screens and flows the same way you would for screenshots — clean status bar, real data, no half-loaded states. The Play Store screenshot sizes guide covers the capture hygiene that applies equally to video frames, and the framing principles in how to make app screenshots that get downloads map almost one-to-one onto what makes a preview clip land.
How do you make both videos without doing the work twice?
The trap with cross-store video is the same as with screenshots: you build one thing, then fight to reshape it for the other store. Here's the workflow that keeps it sane.
1. Write one 20-second script. One idea, one flow, captions planned. This thinking is shared across both stores — the story that sells your app doesn't change between iOS and Android.
2. Capture clean footage once. Screen-record your real flows with a clean status bar and real-looking data. Capture at the highest resolution you can; you'll downscale per target later.
3. Cut the Apple version to spec. Export at the device resolution Apple wants — 886×1920 for the modern portrait iPhone — keep it inside 15-30 seconds, H.264, 30 fps, and upload up to three per device size if you've got variations worth testing.
4. Cut the Google version for YouTube. Same footage, but consider a landscape cut so you stay eligible for recommended placements, upload it as a public or unlisted YouTube video with embedding on, then paste the link into Play Console. Don't forget the feature graphic, or the video won't show.
5. Keep the title and end cards consistent. Your opening text and closing call-to-action should match your screenshot headlines and your icon's palette. The fastest way I've found is to design the title/end frames in the same place I frame screenshots — drop a device frame and your brand background in the PlayMockUp studio, screenshot the composition, and use it as the bookend frames so the video and the still screenshots are visibly one set.
The principle is identical to cross-platform screenshots: do the *thinking* once, branch only on the *technical export*. If you want the full side-by-side of how the two stores differ on the screenshot side, I broke it down in App Store vs Play Store screenshots, and the same design-once, export-twice logic carries straight over to video.
1. Write one 20-second script. One idea, one flow, captions planned. This thinking is shared across both stores — the story that sells your app doesn't change between iOS and Android.
2. Capture clean footage once. Screen-record your real flows with a clean status bar and real-looking data. Capture at the highest resolution you can; you'll downscale per target later.
3. Cut the Apple version to spec. Export at the device resolution Apple wants — 886×1920 for the modern portrait iPhone — keep it inside 15-30 seconds, H.264, 30 fps, and upload up to three per device size if you've got variations worth testing.
4. Cut the Google version for YouTube. Same footage, but consider a landscape cut so you stay eligible for recommended placements, upload it as a public or unlisted YouTube video with embedding on, then paste the link into Play Console. Don't forget the feature graphic, or the video won't show.
5. Keep the title and end cards consistent. Your opening text and closing call-to-action should match your screenshot headlines and your icon's palette. The fastest way I've found is to design the title/end frames in the same place I frame screenshots — drop a device frame and your brand background in the PlayMockUp studio, screenshot the composition, and use it as the bookend frames so the video and the still screenshots are visibly one set.
The principle is identical to cross-platform screenshots: do the *thinking* once, branch only on the *technical export*. If you want the full side-by-side of how the two stores differ on the screenshot side, I broke it down in App Store vs Play Store screenshots, and the same design-once, export-twice logic carries straight over to video.
Frequently asked questions
How long should an app preview video be?
On the Apple App Store it must be 15 to 30 seconds — App Store Connect rejects anything outside that range. On Google Play there's no hard duration limit since it's a YouTube link, but keep it under 30 seconds because the store autoplays roughly the first 30 seconds on mute. Around 20 seconds is the sweet spot on both.
What size should an App Store preview video be?
It depends on the device. For the 6.9-inch iPhone, portrait is 886×1920 and landscape is 1920×886, and that 886×1920 portrait number also covers the 6.5-inch, 6.3-inch, and 6.1-inch sizes. Older 5.5-inch and 4-inch phones use 1080×1920, and iPads use 1200×1600 portrait.
How do you add a promo video to Google Play?
You don't upload a file — you paste a YouTube link. Upload your video to YouTube as public or unlisted, enable embedding, disable ads, then add the full video URL in Play Console. You also need a feature graphic uploaded before the video will appear on your listing.
Can I use the same video for the App Store and Google Play?
You can reuse the same footage and script, but you'll export differently: Apple wants a spec-exact file per device size that you upload directly, while Google wants a single YouTube link, ideally landscape, that it embeds. Keep your title and end cards consistent across both, which is easy if you build them in the [PlayMockUp studio](/create) with the same frames and palette as your screenshots.
Do I need an app preview video at all?
No, it's optional on both stores. A strong screenshot set with no video beats a confusing video. Make one if your app has motion that stills can't capture — a game, an animation tool, a fluid interaction — and skip it for mostly static apps until you have footage worth showing.
What format does an App Store preview video need to be?
It must be .mov, .m4v, or .mp4, encoded in H.264 (10–12 Mbps) or ProRes 422 HQ, at a maximum of 30 frames per second, with stereo AAC audio at 256 kbps. The H.264 file can be up to 500 MB. Apple also requires the footage to be genuine in-app capture rather than a fully animated ad.
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