Video Ad Specs for App Store Preview Videos, Explained

Video ad specs for app store preview videos change depending on where the video actually plays: inside your Apple App Store or Google Play listing, or as a paid social teaser that drives people toward that listing. Mixing up the two is the most common reason a preview looks great on one placement and gets cropped, stretched, or rejected on another. This guide breaks down what each placement actually wants, in general terms you can verify against the current developer docs before you export anything.

What Counts as an "App Store Preview Video"

An app store preview video is the short clip that plays automatically (or on tap) at the top of your app or game's store listing, above or alongside the screenshots. It's meant to show the product in action — real interface, real flow, minimal marketing polish — so a browsing user understands what the app does before they tap install. This is different from a paid social video ad, which runs as a sponsored placement inside TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, or a Meta feed and is designed to stop a scroll and make a case for the download, not just demonstrate the UI.

Both assets matter for installs, and many teams reuse footage between them, but the specs are not interchangeable. A preview video built for the store listing is often shot at the device's native orientation and resolution. A paid social ad is almost always vertical, short, and built with captions and a hook because sound is unreliable in a feed. If you only have one video in your pipeline, know which placement it was actually built for before you reuse it somewhere else.

Video Ad Specs for App Store Preview Videos: The Basics

The exact numbers below are a practical starting point. Store requirements get adjusted over time, so treat this as a checklist of the variables to confirm in App Store Connect or Google Play Console right before you export your final file — not as a permanent spec sheet.

Apple App Store preview video specs (general guidance)

• Orientation: match the orientation your app is primarily used in — portrait for most mobile apps, landscape for games or tablet-first experiences.
• Resolution: aligned to actual device screen resolutions Apple lists for preview uploads, rather than one universal size. Shoot or render at the highest resolution your target device supports, then let the store compress it.
• Duration: previews are short by design, commonly in the fifteen-to-thirty-second range. Confirm the current minimum and maximum in App Store Connect before you lock your edit length.
• File format: typically M4V, MP4, or MOV with H.264 or HEVC encoding — check the current accepted codecs in the upload tool itself, since this is one of the specs most likely to be updated.
• Audio: Apple previews can include a soundtrack, but assume a meaningful share of browsers will watch with sound off, so the visual story should still land without it.
• Content rules: no device frames, no pricing or promotional badges layered on top, and the footage should represent the real app experience, not a mockup.

Google Play preview video specs (general guidance)

• Source: Play Store previews are typically hosted as a linked video rather than a direct native upload, so format flexibility is usually a bit wider than Apple's.
• Orientation: same logic as Apple — match your app's primary usage orientation, portrait for most apps and tools, landscape for many games.
• Duration: short-form is still the expectation; keep the cut tight enough that it plays fully before a browsing user swipes past the listing.
• Thumbnail: Play listings let you choose a custom thumbnail frame for the preview, so pick a frame that reads clearly as a static image, not just a mid-motion blur.
• Content rules: similar to Apple — show the real product, avoid stacking promotional text over the footage, and keep branding consistent with your store icon and screenshots.

If your team also publishes to both stores, the safest workflow is to film or render once at a high resolution in the orientation your app actually uses, then re-export per store's current duration and format requirements rather than trying to hit one universal spec that satisfies both.

App Store Preview Specs vs Paid Social Ad Specs

Teams often ask whether they can use the same file for the store listing and for a TikTok or Meta ad campaign. Technically you can upload the same footage, but the specs and the creative approach are different enough that a dedicated cut almost always performs better. Here's the practical comparison.

If you're building the paid social side of this, the structure matters as much as the spec. A tight script structure for app ad videos — hook, problem, solution, proof, offer, call to action — will do more for install rate than any extra polish on the footage itself.

Common Spec Mistakes That Get Previews Rejected or Ignored

• Reusing a landscape screen recording for a portrait listing. Letterboxing or forced cropping makes small UI text unreadable, which defeats the point of a preview.
• Exporting at too low a resolution. Stores compress on their end; starting from a soft or low-bitrate source only makes that compression worse.
• Treating duration limits as a suggestion. Uploads that exceed the current cap get rejected outright, costing you a review cycle you didn't need to lose.
• Over-designing the store preview like a paid ad. Heavy promotional text, countdown badges, or stacked claims can violate listing content rules even when they'd be fine in a paid placement.
• Forgetting the muted-viewer case. Even in a store listing, some visitors will browse with sound off; the UI demonstration should carry the story without narration.
• Shipping one file everywhere. The same MP4 rarely satisfies App Store orientation, Play Store thumbnail requirements, and a vertical ad feed equally well.

A Pre-Launch Specs Checklist

1. Confirm your app's primary orientation and shoot or render your source footage at that orientation, at the highest resolution available.
2. Check App Store Connect and Play Console directly for the current duration, file size, and format limits before your final export — don't rely on last year's numbers.
3. Cut a version with no sound dependency: every important beat should be understandable from the visuals alone.
4. Keep promotional overlays, pricing, and offer badges out of the store preview; save that messaging for your paid social cut.
5. Export a separate vertical 9:16 version for TikTok, Reels, Shorts, and Meta ads, with captions, a hook in the first few seconds, and a clear call to action.
6. Review your app store video ad creative guidelines against your final cut before submitting to either store.

Where the Specs Conversation Usually Breaks Down

Most spec confusion isn't really about pixels — it's about which asset a team is actually trying to build. A founder asks for "the app store video" and means three different things depending on who's in the room: the in-listing preview, a demo reel for the landing page, and a paid social ad meant to drive the install in the first place. Deciding that upfront saves a rebuild later. If the goal is installs from a cold audience, the asset you need is the paid social one, and it's worth reading up on app store optimization video ad tips and app store video ad ideas for SaaS products before you commit to a direction.

If you're still mapping out the demo itself — what to show, what order, how long each screen stays on camera — a step-by-step approach like the one in how to make an app demo video for ads is a faster starting point than freeform filming.

How FrameNotion Fits In

FrameNotion is not a store-listing upload tool, and it doesn't submit anything to App Store Connect or Play Console for you. What it's built for is the other half of the problem: the paid social ad that drives people toward your listing in the first place. Paste your app's landing page or product link, and FrameNotion AI writes and renders a custom 30-second vertical ad — 1080×1920, 9:16, 30fps — with a voiceover, music cut to the beat, sound effects, and word-by-word captions, built to work with sound off as well as on. Every ad also comes exported as 4:5, 1:1, and 16:9, so the same creative direction can be reused across placements without a second production pass.

You can add your logo, up to six product screenshots, and notes like a promo code, and the whole thing is finished in about 10 to 20 minutes rather than a multi-day shoot. If the first hook doesn't land, Pro and Agency plans can generate A/B hook variants, and copy or color changes can be requested afterward without starting a new ad. See examples of finished ads, read through how it works, or check plans and pricing if you're deciding how many ads your install campaign needs per month. For a closer look at tooling built specifically around app previews and demo cuts, the app store video ad maker tool guide is a useful companion read.