LocalASOASO glossary
CJK characters (App Store metadata)
CJK characters are the characters of Chinese, Japanese and Korean writing. For ASO they matter because each one typically takes three bytes in UTF-8, so the 100-byte keyword field holds far fewer of them than Latin letters.
Updated
Locale codes
| Language | Code |
|---|---|
| Japanese | ja |
| Korean | ko |
| Chinese (Simplified) | zh-Hans |
| Chinese (Traditional) | zh-Hant |
See locale code for the format.
Bytes in practice
Counted examples:
| Entry | Characters | Bytes |
|---|---|---|
| 習慣化 (Japanese) | 3 | 9 |
| タスク管理 (Japanese) | 5 | 15 |
| 습관관리 (Korean) | 4 | 12 |
A hypothetical list 習慣化,タスク管理,目標設定 has 14 characters and 38 bytes, so roughly 62 bytes remain. Commas cost one byte each. In practice, a CJK keyword list holds about 30 characters before commas.
The three-character minimum
Apple states each keyword must be greater than two characters. Many Chinese and Japanese words are two characters long. A two-character word is not valid as an entry on its own, so choose a longer form with three or more characters, such as 習慣化. Confirm the result in App Store Connect before relying on it.
Name and subtitle
Common mistakes
- Translating English keywords one-to-one. See keyword localization.
- Using a character counter for the keyword field. See byte limit.
Next step
Check your list with the keyword field checker and plan languages with the localization guide.
Sources
- Apple: developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/reference/platform-version-information#keywords (checked November 1, 2026)
- Apple: developer.apple.com/documentation/appstoreconnectapi/managing-metadata-in-your-app-by-using-locale-shortcodes (checked November 1, 2026)
- Apple: developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/reference/app-information/app-information#name (checked November 1, 2026)
Do this for every country, in minutes