App preview videos sit on top of your screenshots in the App Store listing. They autoplay when a visitor opens your page. Apple gives you up to three per locale. Most teams ship one and move on.
The hard specs
- Length: 15 to 30 seconds. Hard limits, not advisory.
- Codec: H.264 or ProRes 422 (HQ).
- Container: .mov, .mp4 or .m4v.
- Audio: AAC.
- Frame rate: up to 30 fps. File under 500 MB.
- Resolution: matches the screenshot device class. For 6.9", 6.5", 6.3" and 6.1" iPhones, the preview is 886×1920 portrait — not the full 1320×2868 of the still screenshot.
Three previews per locale
Up to three videos per locale. The first one autoplays. Treat the others as "see more" clicks; most users never reach them.
The autoplay reality
Autoplay starts muted. Your video has about three seconds of silent visual to earn a tap-for-sound. If the visual story is not clear without audio, the rest of the video is wasted.
Localizing the video
Two pragmatic approaches:
- One master, swap captions. Burn translated captions on top of the same footage. Cheaper, fine for most apps.
- Per-locale recordings. Re-record the in-app screens in the target language, replace the master. Worth it for the top three or four markets only.
Voiceover is rarely worth it. Most users have the volume off, and non-native voice actors read as artificial.
Does it actually move conversion?
Apple's own data shows preview videos lift conversion when the app is visual or motion-heavy: games, video editors, fitness, drawing. For utility apps, the lift is small and sometimes negative — the silent muted preview confuses more than it sells. If unsure, A/B test with PPO.