Fit your listing before the console rejects it
Count every App Store and Google Play metadata field against its real limit — app name, subtitle, keywords, short description — before you paste it into the console.
App Store
Indexed for search. The single most valuable 30 characters you own.
Also indexed. Do not repeat words already in the name — duplicates are wasted.
Comma-separated, no spaces after commas. Not shown to users. Never repeat the name or subtitle.
Not indexed, but updatable without a new release. Good for a current offer.
Not indexed by App Store search. Write it for people, not for keywords.
Google Play
Indexed and heavily weighted.
Indexed, and the first thing shown on the listing. Worth more effort than its length suggests.
Indexed by Play search, unlike Apple’s. Natural repetition of key terms helps; stuffing is penalised.
Limits last verified 2026-09-02. Nothing you type is sent anywhere — the counting happens entirely in your browser.
Which fields actually matter
The two stores index different things, so the same copy cannot serve both.
On the App Store, search indexes the app name, the subtitle, and the keyword field — 160 characters in total. The description is not indexed at all. Every word repeated between those three fields is a wasted slot, because Apple already has it.
On Google Play, the title, short description, and full description are all indexed. Natural repetition of your key terms across them helps; obvious stuffing is penalised.
The practical consequence: write the App Store version as three tight, non-overlapping fields, and the Play version as prose that reads well and happens to contain your terms.
Common questions
- How many characters is the App Store app name?
- Thirty characters, and it is indexed for App Store search. The subtitle is a separate 30 characters and is also indexed.
- How long can the App Store keyword field be?
- One hundred characters. Separate terms with commas and no spaces — a space after a comma costs you a character for nothing. Do not repeat words already in your app name or subtitle.
- Is the App Store description indexed for search?
- No. Apple does not index the description for App Store search, so keyword-stuffing it achieves nothing. Google Play does index its full description, which is why the two need to be written differently.
- Do emoji count as one character?
- Practically, no. Many emoji and non-Latin characters occupy more than one unit in the encodings the stores count with, so a field that looks under the limit can be rejected. Count conservatively.