How to write your App Store app name and subtitle

The two fields at a glance#

Apple's App Store Connect reference defines both. The name is the localized name of your app as it appears on the product page and when people install it, at least 2 and no more than 30 characters. The subtitle is a summary of your app that appears under its name, up to 30 characters.

Every character counts, spaces and punctuation included. Check a draft with the title counter and the subtitle counter; the glossary has short entries on the App Store title and the App Store subtitle.

Your company name is searchable as well, Apple says, so the name doesn't need to carry it unless it is the brand.

What Apple's rules say#

App Review checks both fields against Guideline 2.3.7, part of the section on accurate metadata. Its lines on names:

And on subtitles:

Other guidelines add to the list. Here is each rule with an invented draft for a meal planner called Kettlebird that would break it:

If a draft needs an argument to pass one of these rules, change the draft. Each fix waits for a new version and another review.

How the name and subtitle appear in search#

Apple says the parts of your product page that appear in search results include your app name, subtitle, screenshots and more, and that your rating and up to three screenshots or app previews may show, depending on the platform and image orientation. Its product page guide adds that the subtitle appears below your app's name throughout the App Store.

So a searcher meets your two lines next to the icon, the rating and the first screenshots, in a list of rivals doing the same. In that moment the lines have one job: say what the app is and why to pick it. Apple's pages give the limits, but not how much of a long name fits on one row of results on each device, so look at your own result on an iPhone, and on an iPad if you sell there.

Two related points. On the U.S. store, search results may include app tags, which Apple bases on your English (U.S.) App Store Connect metadata, artificial intelligence and human curation, so the name and subtitle are part of what the tags are drawn from. Apple says tags are currently shown only on the App Store in the United States, and you can deselect tags you don't want under App Information.

Separately, the name under the icon on a Home Screen is not one of these two fields. It comes from the app's bundle, which Apple's documentation describes as the user-visible name used by Siri and shown on the Home Screen. Guideline 2.3.8 asks that your metadata, including the app name and icons, be similar to avoid confusion; it doesn't mention the Home Screen name or say how close they must be. Keep the brand the same in both.

Brand, descriptor, or both#

Apple's product page guide sets out what it wants from a name:

A brand on its own is distinctive but often hints at nothing. A descriptor on its own hints but is generic. Put the two together and a name can meet both halves of Apple's advice: the brand is the unique part, the descriptor is the hint. With the invented meal planner:

The subtitle then carries what the name could not. Apple's product page guide says the subtitle is intended to summarize your app in a concise phrase, and suggests using it, rather than the name, to explain the app's value in more detail, by highlighting features or typical uses rather than generic praise. Give it words the name doesn't already have: a repeat spends an indexed, visible line on nothing new.

A method for choosing the words#

1. Write the app's job in the words a stranger would type. Take them from your reviews, the store's search hints, and rivals' names and subtitles, not from your pitch.
2. Decide whether the brand alone says what the app is. If people don't yet search for the brand by name, the name needs a descriptor.
3. Pick one descriptor for the name: the plainest true words for what the app is. If two fit, keep the one your evidence points to, such as review wording or Apple Ads search terms, and move the other to the subtitle.
4. Write the subtitle as what the app does for someone: its main features or typical uses, in words the name doesn't use.
5. Check every word against the table above: no price, no ranking claim, no other app, platform or trademark, and no For Kids outside the Kids category.
6. Count both fields, then picture the pair in a search result next to two rivals. If it doesn't say what the app is at a glance, rewrite it.
7. Take every word the name and subtitle now carry out of the keyword field, and spend those bytes on new words, as the keyword field guide explains.

• If the brand is new: brand plus descriptor in the name, features in the subtitle.
• If people already search for the brand, as your Apple Ads search terms or reviews may show: the brand can stand alone or with a short descriptor, and the subtitle carries the category words.
• If the descriptor pushes the name past 30 characters: shorten the descriptor, not the brand, or move it to the subtitle.
• If you sell in several languages: write the descriptor in each language. The name is localized, and Apple says you can translate it.

Worked example: Kettlebird#

Kettlebird is invented: a meal planner that builds a week of meals, turns them into one grocery list, and schedules prep. Its first listing used the brand alone and a mood line. The rewrite follows the method above.

Why not Kettlebird: Meal Plan, Recipes, which uses all 30 characters? It passes Apple's rules too. The choice is where recipes sits better: in the name, read first, or in the subtitle, next to grocery list and prep. If reviews keep calling the app a recipe app, recipes earns the name; if they talk about planning the week, meal planner does.

The rewrite also leaves the subtitle free of the name's words, and hands the keyword field six words it no longer needs to hold.

Changing them, and reading what followed#

Neither field changes on its own. Apple says you can edit the name until you submit the app to App Review, and later change it when you create a new version or when the app version's status permits editing it. Its product page guide says you can update your subtitle when submitting a new version. Apple's table of properties editable at any time marks neither.

Apple says App Review typically handles at least 50% of submissions in under 24 hours and 90% in under 48 hours, and after an update, app information may take up to 24 hours to appear on the App Store. Write down the day the new name or subtitle is live.

A store test can't settle the choice: Apple's product page optimization tests visual assets such as the icon, screenshots and app previews, not the name or subtitle. What you can read is App Store search in App Analytics, which includes views and downloads from ads in search results. Compare whole weeks of search impressions, product page views and downloads before and after the live day.

That is a before-and-after read, not a controlled test: it says what followed, not why. Change one of the two lines at a time, and give each change whole weeks before the next. See before-and-after reads and search impressions not becoming downloads.

Where RocketASO fits#

RocketASO reads your App Store and Google Play reports, names the fix estimated to be worth most this week, and compares installs before and after it. It starts you with a draft of the copy or the keyword field, and nothing reaches the store until you approve it. Each read, at 7 and 14 days, is a before-and-after read, not a controlled test. To see where a public listing stands first, run the free ASO audit.