A Shopify app listing is refused for two kinds of reason. The first kind is arithmetic: the image is the wrong size, or there are two of something that takes one. The second kind is editorial: the image is the right size and shows the wrong thing. Both are checkable before you submit, and this is the list to check them against.

What the listing takes

Three assets, and only one of them has a stated file format.

  • The app icon. 1200 × 1200 pixels, square, JPEG or PNG. One.
  • Feature media. 1600 × 900 pixels, a 16:9 rectangle. One. A video of two to three minutes can take this slot instead of a still.
  • Desktop screenshots. 1600 × 900 pixels, the same shape as the feature image. Three at the least, six at the most.

So a full listing is at most seven images: one square and six rectangles. The feature image and the screenshots are the same size, which is why a set is drawn as one batch rather than as a hero plus some captures.

What the images may not carry

Three requirements do most of the refusing. They are quoted here because a paraphrase of a rule is what every other page on this subject publishes, and a paraphrase is what gets people refused.

Requirement 4.3.4:

Don't use stats, data, or unsubstantiated claims such as guarantees in images.

Requirement 4.4.4:

Images should primarily show your app's actual user interface and features. Screenshots must not include desktop backgrounds or browser windows.

Feature images and screenshots that solely contain your app logo are not permitted.

Requirement 4.4.5:

Each image in your app listing must be unique. Screenshots should showcase different features, views, or states of your app.

Don't submit duplicate or near-identical images.

Shopify published 4.4.4 and 4.4.5 on 12 March 2026 and began enforcing them on 26 March 2026. A listing reviewed after that date is reviewed against them.

Two more restrictions sit outside those three and catch people anyway. A price may not appear anywhere in an image, and that includes inside the app icon. Shopify's own trademarks may not appear in your icon.

The checklist

Work down it once, in this order, before the listing goes in.

  • Count the files. One icon, one feature image, between three and six screenshots.
  • Check every dimension. 1200 × 1200 for the icon, 1600 × 900 for everything else, with no rounding.
  • Open the icon at the size of a favicon. If you cannot tell what it is, neither can a merchant scrolling a category page.
  • Read the feature image and nothing else. It has to say what the app does on its own, because in search results and category listings it is the only image shown.
  • Search every image for a number that is a claim. Percentages, counts of merchants, hours saved, uptime, guarantees. Requirement 4.3.4 has no exception for a figure you can prove.
  • Search every image for a price, including the icon.
  • Look for browser chrome. An address bar, a tab strip, a rounded window corner over a desktop wallpaper: all refused under 4.4.4.
  • Look for a slide that is only your logo on a colour. Also 4.4.4.
  • Put the six rectangles side by side. If two of them are the same screen from a different angle, one of them is not carrying anything. That is 4.4.5.
  • Read every word on every image against the box it sits in, at the size a phone shows it. A headline that fits in your design tool and overflows in a browser is a headline nobody proof-read.
  • Check that the labels on the images match the labels in the app. An interface that is not the interface is the whole point of 4.4.4.

Where the documentation stops

Three things people expect to find and will not.

Shopify does not state a file format for the screenshots. Only the icon is specified, as JPEG or PNG. It does not publish a maximum file size for listing images either. Export a PNG at 1600 × 900 and you are inside every limit anyone has run into.

It also does not define near-identical. Anyone who gives you a percentage for it is guessing. The sentence that does the work is the one beside it: each image showcases a different feature, view or state.

The part the checklist cannot do

Everything above is a pass or a fail. What it will not tell you is whether the six images are worth looking at - whether the first one answers the question a merchant is actually asking, and whether the other five carry five different answers rather than one answer five times.

That part is not a rule, it is a decision, and it is the reason a set is drawn rather than captured.