App Store In App Events: Limits, Sizes and Examples

In App Events are timely events inside an app or game, such as a competition, a premiere, a challenge or a live stream, that Apple shows as event cards across the App Store. Apple's In App Events page describes them as a way to reach new, current and previous users, and its App Store Connect help says the cards appear on iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 and later, on the App Store and in Apple Games.

The limits that matter most, as Apple states them on October 19, 2026: an app can have up to 15 approved events in App Store Connect at a time and up to 10 events published on the store at a time. Each event can last up to 31 days and can be promoted up to 14 days before it starts. The event name holds 30 characters, the short description 50 and the long description 120. The event card takes 16:9 media from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 pixels, and the event details page takes 9:16 media from 1080x1920 to 2160x3840. You pick one of seven badges. Every number on this page links to the Apple page it comes from.

Those numbers are worth checking because many guides still repeat the limits from the launch in October 2021, when an app could only show five events at once, and even one of Apple's own videos from 2023 still says five. The section on outdated limits below names them, so you can see which figures changed and plan an event calendar on the current ones.

A note on the name. Apple writes "In App Events" with hyphens; we write it without them in our own copy, as with every term on this site. In analytics tools such as AppsFlyer, "in app events" means something else entirely: user actions tracked inside an app, like a purchase or a finished tutorial. This page is about Apple's App Store feature. A short section near the end explains the difference so you can tell which guide you are reading.

The difference between five and ten published events is the difference between a thin product page and a full one. If a team plans around five, it tends to run one big event a month and leave the slot empty in between. With ten published and fifteen approved, an app can keep a monthly challenge, a season and a premiere live at once, and still have the next month's events approved and waiting.

The approved limit is the one that shapes your workflow. Events count toward it from approval until they end and are archived, so a team that approves a whole quarter at once can run out of room. Apple's Manage events help lets you archive a past event and delete events in Draft, Archived or Approved states, which frees space for the next batch.

The 31 day limit applies to the event itself, not to the time it is visible. With 14 days of promotion before the start, an event can sit on your product page for up to about six and a half weeks. That is our arithmetic from Apple's two limits, and it is the main reason a 30 day total, as one older guide puts it, undercounts how long an event can work for you.

Apple's In App Events page lists three places. The first is your product page, which shows all of your currently published events. Events are ordered by start time, soonest first, and any event you mark as high priority appears ahead of normal priority events.

The second is search. When someone searches for your app and already has it, the event card appears with your app; people who do not have it see your screenshots instead. People can also search for an event directly, and then the event card appears with your app. Third party guides such as yellowHEAD's report that the event name and short description are indexed for search; Apple says events can be found by searching for them but does not publish which fields are indexed.

The third is editorial selections and personalized recommendations on the Today, Games and Apps tabs. Apple's help now names Apple Games too, the games app Apple added to its platforms, so a game's events can appear there as well. Editorial placement is chosen by Apple's editors, and you can ask for it through a featuring nomination, covered further down and in our guide on how to get featured on the App Store.

From any of these places, a person can tap the card to open the event details page, share the event through Messages or social media, or opt in to a notification from the App Store when the event starts. If they do not have your app, they can download it from the card or details page, then tap Open to land straight in the event.

Apple's test is that an event is a limited time moment or experience inside the app. Its In App Events page names challenges, competitions and special content launches as good candidates, and lists three things that are not: repetitive activities such as daily tasks or rewards, price promotions that do not introduce new content, features or goods, and general promotions that raise awareness of the app. An event can point at content that stays in the app afterwards, but the event itself has to focus on a moment with a start and an end.

The App Review Guidelines put the same idea in rule form. Guideline 2.3.13 in the App Review Guidelines says an event must fall within an event type offered in App Store Connect, that all event metadata must be accurate and about the event rather than the app in general, that the event must happen at the times and dates you set in App Store Connect, including across storefronts, that you may monetize it under the business rules in section 3, and that the event deep link must take users to the right place in the app.

In practice, most rejected events fail one of four checks. The name is a call to action like "Watch the livestream" rather than the event's real name. The text promotes the app or a subscription instead of describing the event. The metadata includes a price or discount, which Apple says will be rejected because prices change by region. Or the deep link opens the home screen instead of the event. Our guide to App Store rejection reasons covers how App Review messages are worded and how to reply when an item is rejected.

Subscription apps have one more rule. Apple asks you to mark that an In App Purchase is required only when the event itself costs extra, such as a pay per view event inside a subscription app. If the event is part of the normal subscription, you do not mark it as requiring a purchase.

Every event goes through App Review before it can appear. Apple's Submit an In App Event help gives two cases. If your app has never been approved, the event has to go in the same submission as your first iOS app version. If your app is already approved, you can submit the event with or without a new app version.

To submit, select the event, click Add for Review, and add it to an existing draft submission or start a new one. The status moves to Ready for Review. When you submit without an app version, you pick a platform and the event is reviewed together with the latest version of that platform. Then click Submit for Review, and the status moves to Waiting for Review and then In Review. One limit catches teams out: a user with only the Marketing role can submit events but cannot add app versions to a submission.

Since October 29, 2025, Apple lets you send one or more events in a separate submission even when an app version is already under review, per its developer news post. Before that, a version stuck in review could hold an event back. Review time for an event follows the general App Review queue, which our App Store review time guide tracks month by month; plan to submit at least a few days before the publish date, and longer in September when new iOS versions bring a wave of submissions.

Once approved, you can still change some details. Apple's Manage events help says you can adjust regional availability, priority, start time, end time and publish date while those dates are in the future. Once the event is published you can change only the start and end dates, and after it begins only the end date. If the event is Waiting for Review or In Review, you have to remove it from review to edit anything except regional availability.

Three dates control an event: when it becomes visible, when it starts and when it ends. Apple's Offer In App Events help says the start can be any future date, the end can be up to 31 days after the start, the event must last at least 15 minutes, and the publish date, when the card first appears on the store, can be up to 14 days before the start.

The promotion window is where most of the value of an event sits. During those 14 days the card says the event is coming, people can ask to be notified, and the card already counts as an impression in your analytics. A one day live event with a full 14 day lead can bring in more notification opt ins than a month long challenge with no lead time. That is a planning observation, not an Apple figure; check it against your own event metrics.

Regional start times solve a common problem for live events. Customize Dates and Times lets you start in different storefronts at different times, as long as every start date falls within 48 hours of the others. A live session at 8pm local time in Tokyo, London and New York fits easily. A global launch staggered over a week does not; that needs separate events.

Keep in mind that up to 10 events can have overlapping start dates and times at once, counting both approved events and drafts. If you build a large calendar of overlapping drafts, that ceiling can bite before the 15 approved limit does.

The deep link decides what happens when someone taps Open on the card. Apple's In App Events page says it can be a universal link, which Apple recommends for security, or a custom URL scheme. It asks you to avoid URL shorteners and anything else that adds redirects, and to test the link by pasting it into the Notes app and tapping it. Apple's documentation on allowing apps and websites to link to your content covers how universal links are set up.

Where the link lands depends on timing and on who is tapping. Apple's advice is to link straight to the event when it is live, to a landing screen that builds anticipation and says when to come back when it has not started, and to run new users through any onboarding they need before the event. In every case, give people a way back to the main app.

A broken or lazy deep link is one of the reasons Apple names in guideline 2.3.13, so test it on a clean install as well as on a device that already has the app. A new user who taps Download, then Open, should still end up at the event once onboarding is done.

The card is small and landscape; the details page is tall and full screen. Design the details media first, at 1080x1920, and crop the 16:9 card from the strongest part of the same scene, so both read as one event. Apple asks for visual continuity across the two, through similar colors or illustration style.

Leave text out. Apple overlays the badge, the event name and the description itself, and asks you to avoid text and logos in the media, especially your app name or the event name. Put the subject in the middle of the frame, because Apple applies its own crops and gradients, and preview both shapes in App Store Connect before submitting.

Consider video. Apple suggests it gives a more dynamic preview, and it autoplays and loops on the card. A short loop of gameplay, a workout move or a scene from a premiere usually says more than a still. Keep files well under the 500MB ceiling so they upload and process quickly, and remember the minimum is 1920x1080 for the card and 1080x1920 for the details page.

If you already make App Store screenshots, the same brand colors and type should carry into event media. Our App Store screenshot sizes guide covers the other image sizes on the product page, and the App Store marketing guidelines cover how Apple's badges and product images may be used outside the store.

Games have an easy time with events: seasons, tournaments and limited levels are already part of how they work. Apps that are not games can use events too, as long as each one is a real moment with new content or a time limit.

A fitness or habit app can run a monthly Challenge with a goal and an end date. A language or learning app can run a Competition with a weekly league. A meditation, music or education app can run a Live Event with a class at a set time. A productivity or finance app can use Major Update for a significant new feature, as long as it is more than a redesign or a fix. A podcast, video or reading app can use Premiere for a first episode or a new book. A photo or creative app can use Special Event for a themed week of new filters or templates.

What does not work is the evergreen pitch dressed up as an event: "Try Premium", "Spring Sale" or "Meet the New Look". Apple names general awareness promotions and price promotions without new content as poor candidates, and they tend to come back rejected. If the honest description of the moment is "we have a discount", it is not an In App Event.

Read the funnel in order. Impressions say how often the card was seen, page views say how many people were curious enough to tap it, reminders say how many wanted to come back, and downloads and app opens say whether the event moved anyone. A high impression count with few page views points at the card media or the short description. Many page views and few reminders point at the long description or the details media.

Compare events against each other, not against an outside benchmark. Apple does not publish average event numbers, and the third party figures that circulate come from small samples. The useful questions are which badge, which length and which lead time worked best for your own audience, and whether events aimed at lapsed users brought them back.

The event purpose you choose in App Store Connect, from Appropriate for All Users, Attract New Users, Keep Active Users Informed and Bring Back Lapsed Users, is one of the signals Apple uses for personalized recommendations, according to its In App Events page. It does not hide the event from anyone; every published event is discoverable by all customers. It is worth setting honestly, and comparing results by purpose over a few months.

Apple's editors pick events for the Today, Games and Apps tabs, and they take requests. Apple's Getting Featured page lists In App Events among the things it looks to highlight, and asks for at least two weeks of notice through Featuring Nominations in App Store Connect, with up to three months for wider consideration.

A nomination can carry the event itself. Apple's nomination help says that if an app in your nomination has an approved or published In App Event, you can attach it, and recommends attaching it as early as possible. The bulk CSV template takes up to 25 event IDs per nomination. The help also notes that In App Events are only available for iPhone and iPad apps, so a nomination for a Mac or Apple TV app will not carry them.

The practical sequence is to create and approve the event weeks ahead, nominate it with the event attached, and keep the publish date at the full 14 days before the start. Our guide on how to get featured on the App Store covers what to write in a nomination and how the lead times differ between Apple's pages.

Search for "in app events" and half the results are about something else. In mobile analytics and attribution, an in app event is a user action measured inside the app; AppsFlyer's glossary defines it as an action users take after installing, such as a purchase, a level reached or a finished tutorial. Attribution and analytics tools use the term this way.

Apple's In App Events are the opposite direction: content you publish to the App Store about something happening in the app. The two do meet, since an App Store event can drive the purchases and level completions your analytics count, but they are set up in different places. App Store events live in App Store Connect; analytics events live in your app's code and your measurement tool.

If a guide talks about SDKs, event names in code or postbacks, it is about tracking. If it talks about badges, event cards or App Review, it is about Apple's App Store feature, which is what this page covers.

An In App Event reaches people on the App Store. The people who follow your app on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or Pinterest only hear about it if someone posts. Spreadcast watches your public App Store listing every day and turns what changes there, a new version, a new 5 star review or a rating milestone, into a designed post with your own icon and screenshots in an iPhone frame, plus a caption written for each network.

It publishes on the schedule you set, and you approve with one tap or let it post by itself. That covers the version that ships alongside an event, so the update and the event go out together on the store and in your feeds. Paste your App Store link on the start page to see a first post drafted from your listing, and see the plans for automatic publishing. For a one off announcement, the product launch post generator drafts a post from a link.