Translate App Store Screenshots to German

Short strings grow the most. IBM figures for translation out of English, quoted by the W3C (opens in a new tab), put expansion at 200–300% for source text of up to 10 characters, falling to about 130% above 70 characters. They are general figures, not German-specific ones. The W3C's own example turns the English word "views" into a German phrase 2.8 times the length.

Screenshot headlines and tab labels sit exactly in that short range. These everyday UI strings show the pattern:

The last row is the real problem. A 19-character English headline becomes two words of 18 and 15 characters, and neither fits on a narrow line at headline size.

German joins nouns into single words; the W3C cites "Input processing features" becoming a single 30-character German compound. The official spelling rules (opens in a new tab) (§ 108) split compounds between their parts, so the safe breaks fall between the three nouns that form it (input, processing, features), never mid-syllable.

The same rulebook (§ 107 E2) warns against breaks that mislead the reader. Its own example is the German word for "primal instinct": hyphenated one syllable too late, the first line reads as the word for "urine" and the second as "stinks". That is exactly the kind of accident an automatic line break produces in a narrow caption box.

• Widen the caption area for German, or allow a two-line headline, before you shrink the font.
• Rewrite instead of squeezing: a German phrase meaning "In sync on all devices" reads more naturally and is shorter than the literal translation of "Sync across devices".
• Keep text large. Google Play advises against (opens in a new tab) small text that won't be visible on many phone screens, and says taglines should not take up more than 20% of the image.

Choose one form of address before anyone translates. A casual brand may prefer the informal form; regulated or business products usually choose the formal one. Whatever you pick, match the in-app UI, because users see both on the same product page.

The spelling rules treat the two differently. The formal pronoun and its possessive are always capitalized (§ 65); the informal pronouns are written in lowercase (§ 66), with capitals allowed only in letters. A call to action that lowercases the formal pronoun looks careless to German readers.

The formal form also costs width: a two-word "Start now" gains a pronoun and several characters. A neutral infinitive phrasing avoids the choice entirely and is common in German interfaces.

If your design sets headlines in capitals, ß changes. The spelling rules (opens in a new tab) (§ 25 E3) write SS in capitals and also allow the capital ẞ, so the German word for "street" is capitalized with either a double S or a single ẞ. The SS form adds a character to every affected word, and not every font includes a capital ẞ glyph.

• Leave room above the cap height for Ä, Ö and Ü; tight line spacing clips the dots.
• Keep nouns capitalized in sentence-case headlines. German capitalizes every noun, so English-style lowercase looks wrong.
• Pick SS or ẞ once and use it on every slide.

German is a single target in StoreLocale (code de), so shorter rewrites go in before any credits are spent: detecting and translating the text is free, and each German string stays editable until the repaint. The repaint then uses credits by quality tier: Standard 1 credit at 1K, Pro 2 at 2K, Ultra 4 at 4K.

Upload the exported PNGs to de-DE in both consoles. Apple's storefront table (opens in a new tab) lists German as the default language in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and as an additional language in Luxembourg, so one set serves all four storefronts.

Skipping the German images has a visible cost. A new App Store localization (opens in a new tab) starts with your primary-language screenshots, and on Google Play (opens in a new tab) translated text without localized graphics shows your default-language graphics.

1. Form of address: formal or informal used consistently, with the formal pronouns capitalized.
2. Line breaks: compounds split only between their parts, with no misleading fragments.
3. Truncation: no ellipses, clipped letters or words cut to a few characters.
4. Capitals: ß handled the same way on every slide, and umlaut dots fully visible.
5. Terms match the German UI in the app and the German store description word for word.
6. Numbers and dates use German formats, such as 1.299,99 € and 21.09.2026.
7. Brand names, feature names and trademarks stay untranslated where they should.