How to reply to an App Store rejection
Most rejections are answered badly: a general protest instead of a specific fix with a link.
What this is
Most rejections are answered badly: a general protest instead of a specific fix with a link.
Step by step
- Read the message again and find the exact guideline number.
- Work out which of your screens or URLs they were looking at.
- Fix that one thing.
- Reply in Resolution Center saying what you changed and where to see it.
- Resubmit only after the URL or the screen actually shows the change.
One thing people miss
Arguing works when the reviewer misread something and you can show it in one sentence. It rarely works as a general objection.
Keeping it true after launch
A legal page stops being true the moment the product moves past it, usually by adding a payment provider, an analytics SDK or a sign-in. No store re-checks your pages against your build, so the drift is yours to notice.
- Re-read it whenever you add a dependency that sees user data.
- Re-check what loads on the page after any change: the cookie notice and the policy have to agree.
- Keep the URL stable. Changing where a policy lives breaks every listing that points at it.
Common questions
How long does this take?
Minutes, once the page it points at exists. The writing is the slow part, not the form.
Can I change it later?
Yes, and you should whenever the app changes. What you want to avoid is changing the URL, because everything that points at it breaks.