How to Choose Your App Store Primary and Secondary Category

• An app can have a primary and a secondary category. The primary one determines where the app appears when people browse or filter search results.
• Apple's search documentation says the primary category and the optional secondary category are indexed by the search algorithm.
• Guideline 2.3.5 requires you to select the most appropriate category; Apple may change a category that is way off base.
• Apple advises not repeating words from the app name, subtitle or category in the keyword field.
• Games can have up to two Games subcategories.
• For macOS apps the category is also set in Xcode, and the primary category in App Store Connect should match it.
• Apple's category definitions list 27 categories, including Productivity, Health & Fitness, Education, Lifestyle and Utilities.

1. Start with fit, not with keywords. Write one sentence about who uses the app and why. Pick the category in which a person would look for that.
2. List two or three candidates. For a habit tracker: Health & Fitness, Productivity, Lifestyle.
3. Check the competition by category. Look at the apps that rank for your main keywords and note which categories they use. Matching the majority is not required, but a category nobody in your space uses needs a reason.
4. Choose the primary. The one whose browse and filter placement fits how people look for your product.
5. Choose the secondary. The next-closest category, or one that covers a vocabulary you cannot fit elsewhere.
6. Remove category words from the keyword field. Apple advises against the repeat.
7. Recheck once a year. If the product changed, the category might too.

A hypothetical habit tracker, Streakly, is Health & Fitness (primary) with Productivity (secondary). The words "health", "fitness" and "productivity" come from the categories. Spelled out as keywords they would be "health,fitness,productivity", which is 27 bytes, 27 percent of the 100-byte field. Streakly spends those bytes on "routine,planner,goals,daily" instead, also 27 bytes.

If Streakly had chosen Lifestyle as the primary because it seemed less crowded, its listing would be less appropriate for users who browse for health. Apple's rule requires the most appropriate category, so the extra bytes would be bought with a mismatch that Apple may correct anyway.

• Choose a category because it is less competitive when it does not describe the app.
• Add category words to the keyword field again.
• Assume the secondary category is a keyword list. It is a placement, and Apple documents only that it is indexed.
• Change categories without checking the effect on rank afterward.

• Games. Pick the Games category and up to two subcategories.
• Mac apps. Set the category in Xcode and make the primary category in App Store Connect match; see Mac App Store optimization.
• Kids. Terms like "For Kids" are reserved for the Kids Category under Guideline 2.3.8.

After a release, compare rank for your main keywords before and after any category change, and keep the change out of releases that also change the title. If rank drops for terms that the old category contained, you lose the free coverage described above, and you can put the words back in the keyword field. Log the date and the reason, as in the update checklist.

Decide categories before you write the keyword field, then pack the field with the keyword field guide. LocalASO keeps a field from repeating words from the name or subtitle and shows rank for each keyword in each country; see the Optimize docs.