What Play actually requires
Screenshots are the second thing a visitor looks at, after the icon, and Play is particular about their dimensions. Get them wrong and the upload is refused at the point you are trying to ship.
| Asset | Size | Rules |
|---|---|---|
| Phone screenshots | 1080 × 1920 typical | 2 minimum, 8 maximum; 320–3840px per side |
| 7-inch tablet | 1200 × 1920 | Required to appear as tablet-optimised |
| 10-inch tablet | 1600 × 2560 | Same |
| Feature graphic | 1024 × 500 exactly | Exactly one, no transparency |
The aspect ratio limit is the one that catches people: no side may be more than twice the other. A tall screenshot from a modern 20:9 phone can therefore be refused, which is why padding rather than stretching is the default here.
Padding or cropping?
Padding keeps your entire screen and adds a coloured border to reach the target ratio. Nothing is lost, everything stays legible, and a consistent brand colour across all of them looks deliberate rather than accidental.
Cropping fills the frame edge to edge and cuts whatever does not fit — usually the top and bottom, which is exactly where your header and navigation live. It suits screenshots that are mostly imagery and punishes ones that are mostly interface.
For a converted website, padding is nearly always right: your content is text and layout, and losing the top of the page loses the point of the screenshot.
The feature graphic is not a screenshot
1024 × 500, exactly one, and it appears at the top of your listing and in promotional placements — sometimes with a play button overlaid, sometimes cropped on narrow screens. Two rules follow: keep important text away from the edges and the centre, and do not simply scale a screenshot into it. A simple graphic with your icon, your app name and a short line reads far better at that shape than a shrunk-down phone screen.
What to screenshot
The temptation is to show the app's full navigation. What converts is showing what someone gets:
- Lead with the main screen — the first screenshot is the only one most people see.
- One idea per image. Browse. Search. Checkout. Track.
- Use real content. Lorem ipsum and placeholder products read as unfinished, and Play does reject listings for placeholder assets.
- Add a short caption in the padding area if you are padding anyway — a few words per screenshot measurably helps.
- Skip the login screen. Nobody installs an app because its sign-in page looks nice.
Capturing them in the first place
Take screenshots on a real device where you can — volume-down plus power on most Android phones — because that captures the true status bar, fonts and rendering. If you are still building and have no installable app yet, a desktop browser at a phone viewport width is a reasonable stand-in, though it will not show the Android chrome that makes a screenshot look like an app rather than a website.
Whatever the source, resize here rather than in a photo editor: the maths for five different targets across eight screenshots is forty exports done by hand.