Xcode Simulator to a store-ready screenshot set in 10 minutes

A simulator capture is not a listing screenshot. The capture is raw app UI, your source material. The listing screenshot is the thing you upload: usually that capture sitting inside a device frame, on a background, with a headline over it. The ten minutes is the distance between the two.

The simulator half is still worth setting up properly. Boot the right device, freeze the status bar so ten captures match each other, and know about the alpha channel that ships in every default PNG. We measured what each simulator actually writes to disk on Xcode 26.5, instead of repeating numbers from other posts.

Step 1: Boot the simulators worth capturing from

Apple requires one iPhone size and, for iPad apps, one iPad size. Apple scales everything else from those, so two simulators cover the whole listing.

Simulator	Writes	App Store class
iPhone 17 Pro Max	1320 × 2868	6.9″, required
iPad Pro 13-inch (M5)	2064 × 2752	13″, required for iPad apps

Both of these land on a required store canvas exactly, which matters less than it first sounds. If you frame your captures, the capture gets scaled down inside the device frame anyway, so matching dimensions isn't the point. What you're buying is headroom: capture at the largest size in the class and you're never upscaling a small image to fill a big canvas. The one case where the dimensions matter directly is if you skip framing and upload the raw capture, which some developers do.

Watch out for the near misses. The iPhone 17 Pro writes 1206 × 2622, which is the 6.3-inch class: a valid optional size, but not a substitute for the required one. The iPhone Air writes 1260 × 2736, which Apple does accept as a 6.9-inch alternate. Apple lists three accepted portrait sizes for the 6.9-inch class (1260 × 2736, 1290 × 2796 and 1320 × 2868), so more than one simulator can be correct. The full breakdown by display class lives in our App Store screenshot sizes reference.

Create and boot from the terminal:

xcrun simctl create qs-6.9 com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimDeviceType.iPhone-17-Pro-Max com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimRuntime.iOS-26-5
xcrun simctl boot qs-6.9
xcrun simctl bootstatus qs-6.9 -b

Step 2: Freeze the status bar

A real status bar leaks your carrier name, whatever battery level you're on, and the time you happened to capture at. Across ten screenshots it looks sloppy. One command fixes every capture that follows:

xcrun simctl status_bar booted override \
  --time "9:41" \
  --dataNetwork wifi --wifiMode active --wifiBars 3 \
  --cellularMode active --cellularBars 4 \
  --batteryState charged --batteryLevel 100

The override sticks until you run xcrun simctl status_bar booted clear. Run it before the first capture, not after, and your whole set stays consistent.

Step 3: Capture, and mind the alpha channel

The documented way to capture is one line:

xcrun simctl io booted screenshot shot-01.png

That default PNG is RGBA. Every pixel's alpha value is 255, so the image looks completely opaque and previews fine everywhere you'd think to check. The alpha channel is still in the file.

Apple's screenshot specification is explicit that images can't include alpha channels or transparencies. So the file your capture tool hands you by default carries the one thing the spec rules out.

This only bites you on one path: uploading captures straight to App Store Connect. Compose them into a listing screenshot first and the export gets flattened on the way out, so the alpha channel never reaches Apple. If you are uploading raw, two flags solve it at capture time:

# JPEG: three channels, no alpha
xcrun simctl io booted screenshot --type=jpeg shot-01.jpg

# PNG with the display mask flattened to black: also three channels
xcrun simctl io booted screenshot --mask=black shot-01.png

Avoid --mask=alpha. It uses the device's rounded-corner mask as premultiplied alpha, which puts genuinely transparent pixels in the corners of your image. That's the version most likely to come back from review. If you want the reasoning behind the rest of the rules, we wrote up why screenshot uploads get rejected.

Step 4: Turn the captures into listing screenshots

This is the step where the two artifacts stop being the same thing. Raw captures convert badly. On the store, your first three screenshots are the ad, and a bare UI shot asks the reader to work out the value themselves. Add a device frame, a background, and a short headline per screen stating one benefit.

This is the step that used to mean opening a design tool and hand-managing canvas sizes. In the QuickScreens editor, you drop in the captures, pick the device frame, write the captions, and reorder the set by dragging. The canvas is already locked to the store's dimensions, so nothing you do can drift off-size.

Step 5: Export both stores from the same set

If you ship on Android too, don't rebuild the set. The Play requirements are different (1080 px minimum on the long edge, plus a 1024 × 500 feature graphic) and they're covered in the Google Play screenshot sizes reference. One project can export both, which is the difference between a ten-minute job and an afternoon.

Where the ten minutes goes

1. Boot two simulators and override the status bar: 2 minutes.
2. Navigate to the five screens worth showing and capture each: 3 minutes.
3. Frame, caption and order the set: 4 minutes.
4. Export both stores: 1 minute.

The slow part is deciding which five screens to show. That's a product decision, and it's worth more of your attention than anything else on this list.

Frequently asked questions

Are simulator screenshots acceptable for the App Store? Yes. Apple validates dimensions, format and content, not which machine produced the image. Most listings don't upload the capture itself though: they upload a composed screenshot with the capture framed inside it, which is what the store artwork on nearly every polished listing actually is.

Which simulator gives the exact required iPhone size? iPhone 17 Pro Max, which writes 1320 × 2868 portrait. That's the largest of the three accepted 6.9-inch sizes, and one 6.9-inch set covers every iPhone through Apple's automatic scaling.

Why does my simulator screenshot get rejected when it looks fine? If you're uploading captures directly, check for an alpha channel first. xcrun simctl io booted screenshot writes RGBA by default even though the image is fully opaque, and Apple's spec doesn't allow alpha channels. Recapture with --type=jpeg or --mask=black.

How do I get a clean 9:41 status bar? Use xcrun simctl status_bar booted override --time "9:41" with the network and battery flags before you capture. It applies to every screenshot until you clear it.

Do I need a physical device for App Store screenshots? No. A device is useful for checking real-world performance and camera behavior, but for store artwork the simulator is faster, more repeatable, and gives you sizes a real device can't always produce.

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Captures are the easy half. Open the editor, drop in your simulator PNGs, and export a store-exact set for both stores in a few minutes.