App Store review notes are an optional field that the guidelines make compulsory.
App Store review notes are the Notes field in the App Review Information section of an app version in App Store Connect. Apple describes the field as additional information about your app that can help during the review process, and says to include what may be needed to test it, such as app-specific settings and test registration or account details. The field holds up to 4000 bytes, in any language. In Apple's own table of App Review Information properties, the Required column is empty for Notes. Then the App Review Guidelines say that all new features, functionality and product changes must be described with specificity in the Notes for Review section, and that generic descriptions will be rejected. Both of those pages are Apple's, read on 21 October 2026. A field that is optional in the form and compulsory in the rules is worth ten minutes, and it is one of the few levers anyone has on their own app store rejection rates.
What follows is where the field lives, what Apple says it is for, the documented limit and what that limit means once you write in another language, and the four guidelines that decide what happens when a reviewer cannot get at a feature. Then the trap nobody plans for: whose notes get read when you submit something that has no new build attached.
Start hereThe short version
Write for someone holding your app who has never seen it before.
A reviewer gets a binary, a product page and your notes. Anything behind a login, a paywall, a region check, a piece of hardware or a second factor is invisible until you say how to reach it. Apple asks for the concept and the business model on a new app, and for what changed and where to find it on an update. Four sentences that answer those questions do more than any amount of polish on the screenshots.
Keep the credentials out of the prose. The demo account belongs in the Sign-in required fields. Notes is for the second account type, the one-time code, the test stream URL, the reason an in-app purchase cannot be reached, and the sentence that tells a reviewer which tab the new feature is on. Google Play wants the same information in a different place, which is why google play app access instructions is a separate job on the App content page in Play Console.
Where is the review notes field, and what does Apple say it is for?
It is a property of an app version, per platform. App Store Connect Help documents it under platform version information, which it defines as the set of properties of an app version specific to each platform the app supports. Open your app, open the version, and the App Review Information section sits on that page. On a version that has already been approved you click Edit at the top right of the section. Apple says the information goes to App Review, is not visible to customers, and can be edited at any time.
Three properties live in that section and they are not interchangeable. Contact takes a name, an email address and a phone number, and Apple marks it required. Sign-in required takes the username and password for a demo account, marked required when your app needs a login to use it, and Apple adds that the account must not expire. Notes is the third, and the Required column against it is blank. That blank is why so many apps go in with an empty field.
The documented size is 4000 bytes, and Apple says in the same sentence that you can write notes in any language. Those two facts interact. English is about one byte per character in UTF-8, so 4000 bytes reads as roughly 4000 characters. Japanese, Greek, Hindi and Arabic cost two or three bytes a character, so the same field holds a third to a half as much text. Everyone online quotes this limit as 4000 characters. Apple's page says bytes, as of 21 October 2026, and that page carries no last-updated date of its own, so the only date available is the day it was read.
One more naming problem is worth knowing before you go hunting. The field is called Notes in App Store Connect. The App Review Guidelines call the same thing the Notes for Review section. Apple uses App Review notes in its own pre-submission checklist. Three names, one field, and search results that look like three different features.
App Store Connect Help, platform version information, App Review information, read 21 October 2026
Check yours
What your notes have to say
Tick what is true of your app. Each answer is the thing Apple's own documentation asks for, and where it goes.
Nothing ticked. Even then Apple asks for the app's concept, its purpose and audience, the devices and operating systems you tested on, and what changed since the last version.
What does Apple say happens if a reviewer cannot exercise a feature?
Four guidelines answer this, and they escalate. Guideline 2.1(b) is the mildest and the most specific: if you offer in-app purchases, make them complete, up to date, visible to the reviewer and functional, and if any configured in-app purchase item cannot be found or reviewed in your app, explain the reason in your review notes. Apple is pointing at the field as the fix.
Guideline 2.3.1(a) raises it. All new features, functionality and product changes must be described with specificity in the Notes for Review section, and must be accessible for review. The clause in brackets is the part worth copying out: generic descriptions will be rejected. Bug fixes and improvements is a generic description. Guideline 2.1(a) adds that Apple will reject incomplete app bundles and binaries that crash or show obvious technical problems, and tells you to include demo account information, and to turn on your back-end service, if your app has a login.
Guideline 2.5.19 is the one that costs real money. Do not include hidden, dormant or undocumented features, because your app's functionality should be clear to end users and to App Review. Attempting to hide undocumented features in the binary, through code obfuscation or other methods, is grounds for removal of the app from the App Store and termination of your developer account. A feature you simply forgot to mention is not that. A feature a reviewer cannot see, in an app where the notes said nothing, is a lot closer to it than anyone would like.
Apple's App Review Help page on providing information for a complete review, read on 21 October 2026, says the same thing in four words: incomplete submissions will be rejected. It also says credentials that expire or change before your review starts may result in the submission being rejected. If it has already happened, the next move is not a rewrite of the notes, and the mechanics of an appeal app store rejection are a different process with a different form.
Apple, App Store Review Guidelines, last updated 16 October 2026, read 21 October 2026
What does Apple ask you to put in the notes?
The pre-submission checklist on the guidelines page gives the one line version. Include detailed explanations of non-obvious features and in-app purchases in the App Review notes, with supporting documentation where appropriate. The same checklist tells you to keep your contact information current in case App Review needs to reach you, and to have your backend services live and accessible during the review.
Apple's App Review Help page on providing information for a complete review, read on 21 October 2026, is the longer list, and it is worth working through in order. General information about the concept, the features and the intended audience. On a new app, the business model. On an update, what changed and where reviewers can find the significant new content or features. The device models and operating system versions you tested on before submitting. The external services, tools or platforms the app uses to deliver its core functionality, and Apple's own examples there are data providers, authentication services, payment processors and AI services. Regional differences in features or content, or a line confirming the app behaves the same everywhere.
Two entries on that page catch people out. Apps that need a hardware accessory must provide a video, and Apple is explicit that a screen recording does not count, showing the app running on a physical Apple device as it pairs and interacts with the hardware. Apps in regulated fields must attach documentation before submitting: regulatory clearance for each country or region for medical apps making diagnostic or treatment claims, an exchange licence per region for cryptocurrency exchanges, partnership documents with the licensed lender for loan apps, the relevant licence per storefront for gambling and real-money gaming, and rights documentation for anyone else's intellectual property.
The account details themselves have their own rules, and the commonest mistake is typing them into Notes when a dedicated field exists. Apple asks for a username and password that work at the time of submission, in the Sign-in required fields, and the app store demo account requirement is where that gets its own walkthrough. Notes takes the overflow: extra credentials when the app has several account types, an authentication code supplied in advance when sign-in needs one, and a note that the subscription account provided is deliberately expired so the whole purchase flow can be reviewed. Apple adds that without the authentication code a call may be required to continue the review, and that calls are typically completed within three to five business days. That is the real cost of a missing sentence.
Apple, App Store Review Guidelines, before you submit, read 21 October 2026
What do the review notes not fix?
They do not travel with a submission that has no version attached. App Store Connect Help states that submissions which include an app version are reviewed together with the App Review information for that version, and that submissions which do not include an app version, or which include items associated with multiple platforms, are reviewed together with the App Review information for the latest approved version of the platform you specify during submission. Submit an in-app purchase, a custom product page or a Game Center component on its own and the notes a reviewer reads are the ones sitting on your last approved version. Stale notes there are worse than empty ones.
They are also not a conversation. The field is written before review starts. Once your app has been rejected, App Store Connect Help says you communicate with Apple in the App Review section, where you get a message explaining how the app violates the guidelines and can correspond, with attachments such as screenshots and supporting documents, until you resubmit. That needs the Account Holder, Admin or App Manager role. So the Notes field is where you set a review up, and the App Review section is where you answer one. Apple documents the second as the place you correspond.
One thing the field cannot do at all is make an inaccessible feature accessible. Guideline 2.3.1(a) asks for two things, a specific description and access, and a perfect paragraph about a screen a reviewer cannot open satisfies one of them. If a feature is genuinely impossible to hand over, Apple's route is a built-in demo mode in place of a demo account, which guideline 2.1(a) allows for legal or security obligations with prior approval by Apple, and which has to exhibit the app's full features and functionality. The same help page links a request for a one-on-one App Review appointment, which is for working out what a review will need before you submit rather than after.
App Store Connect Help, platform version information, App Review information, read 21 October 2026
The three fields in App Review Information
Apple marks the required ones with a tick in a table that does not survive a copy and paste, which is part of why the answer gets repeated wrongly. Here it is as text, read on 21 October 2026.
| Property | What Apple says it is for | Apple marks it required |
|---|---|---|
| Contact: name, email, phone number | The person in your organisation App Review contacts if it needs more information. The phone number has to be in international format, with a plus sign and the country code. | Yes |
| Notes | Additional information that can help during the review, including what may be needed to test the app, such as app-specific settings and test registration or account details. Up to 4000 bytes, in any language. | No |
| Sign-in required: username and password | The demo account. It is used during the review and must not expire. If you sign in through a single sign-on service, the credentials for that service go here too. | Only if your app requires a login to use it |
Where this lands if a builder generated your app
You write the notes, because you are the one who submits. Guideline 4.2.6 says apps created from a commercialized template or app generation service will be rejected unless they are submitted directly by the provider of the app's content, and that such services should not submit apps on behalf of their clients. No tool can fill the field in for you, and any tool that offered to press submit for you would be creating a different problem.
Newly is an AI app builder. You describe an app in plain English and it writes a real React Native and Expo project you own, with two-way GitHub sync. It uploads iOS builds to TestFlight, publishes to Google Play internal testing and builds a standalone Android APK. It is $25 a month, with no free plan. It does not submit to the App Store for you, for the reason in the paragraph above.
The practical effect on your notes is small and specific. A generated app is usually local-first at the start, so there is no login, no demo account and nothing behind a wall. Ask for accounts, a paywall or sync and that changes in one session: there is now a sign-in to hand over, an expired subscription account to provide, and an external service in the stack to list. Open the version in App Store Connect and write four sentences before you submit. What the app is, who it is for, what changed, and where to find it.
Questions people ask about App Store review notes
They are the Notes field inside the App Review Information section of an app version in App Store Connect. Apple describes the field as additional information about your app that can help during the review process, and tells you to include anything that may be needed to test it, such as app-specific settings and test registration or account details. The information goes to App Review, is not visible to customers, and can be edited at any time. The App Review Guidelines call the same thing the Notes for Review section, so you will see both names in Apple's own documentation.
Build the app, then tell the reviewer how to see it
Every wall you put in front of a customer is a wall in front of a reviewer too. Write down how to get past each one, keep the demo account alive until the review ends, and the field stops being the reason a release slips a week.
Start building