German App Store Localization: Storefronts and Keyword Bytes

Austria and Germany both list English (U.K.) as the only additional language. Switzerland lists three: English (U.K.), French and Italian. Luxembourg reverses the order, with English (U.K.) as the default and French and German as additional languages. The locale code is de-DE for all of them; Apple's list has no Austrian or Swiss German locale.

Country-level differences therefore have to be handled inside one keyword field. Look at the Germany, Austria and Switzerland pages before deciding which words to include.

• Default language in 3: Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
• Additional language in 1: Luxembourg.

Every default storefront also lists another language (English (U.K.) in 3, French in one and Italian in one), so German is never the only localization there.

Where German is an additional language, the default beside it is English (U.K.).

Apple's keyword reference allows 100 bytes, not 100 characters. Counted as UTF-8, the example below contains 70 one-byte characters (separators excluded). Every letter costs one byte, so the field holds up to 100 characters, commas included. The words below are a hypothetical keyword list for a habit tracker called Streakly; they are illustrations, not validated search terms, and each has at least three characters.

Joined with commas and no spaces after them, the field is:

Gewohnheiten,Routine,Ziele,Erinnerung,Tagesplaner,Motivation,Selbstdisziplin

That is 76 characters and 76 bytes: 70 bytes of keywords plus 6 commas, leaving 24 of the 100 bytes free. The byte counts assume UTF-8; confirm the final count in App Store Connect before you save.

German often writes a concept as one long word, such as Tagesplaner or Selbstdisziplin. A long compound spends many bytes on one keyword. Apple does not document whether search matches parts of a compound word, so do not assume that a long word also covers its pieces. The reliable method is to put the word you want in the field and then search to see what the storefront returns.

The umlauts and the sharp s take two bytes each. Switzerland needs more than German: its row also lists French and Italian, each of which is a separate listing with its own field.

LocalASO checks keywords in 52 App Store storefronts, each in the storefront's local language, so you can compare your German candidates with the English ones in one place. Keywords, ranks and listings stay in a database on your Mac. LocalASO is a one-time $29 purchase and the app needs a license key to run; the setup is in the localization docs and the price is on the pricing page. To test the field you just built, use the keyword field checker, or browse every language page. See also: French, Italian, Dutch, English (U.K.).