Sunil GillThe App Store has 27 categories as of October 2026, and the one you set as primary decides where your app shows up when people browse, which tab it sits in, and one of the text signals Apple's search matches against. Google Play works differently: 32 app categories and 17 game categories, one choice per app, with up to five tags doing the finer sorting.
This guide lists every category on both stores, explains what the choice changes according to Apple's and Google's own documentation, and walks through how to pick one, when you can change it, and which popular claims about categories the documentation does not back up.
What an App Store category actually does
An App Store category is a label that sorts your app by its main function or subject. Apple lets you assign two: a required primary category and an optional secondary one. According to Apple's guide to choosing a category, the primary category has three concrete effects on iPhone and iPad:
- Browsing. It is the category your app appears under when people browse the store.
- Search filters. It is the category your app falls under when people filter search results.
- Tab placement. It decides whether your app lives on the Apps tab or the Games tab.
It also feeds search ranking. Apple's search documentation names four text-relevance matches: the app's title, subtitle, keywords and primary category. That is why Apple tells developers not to spend any of the 100-character keyword field repeating words that already appear in the app name, subtitle or category. If you are working on that field, our App Store keyword research guide covers how to fill it.
On the Mac App Store the primary category works the same way: it sets where the app appears in browse and search filters and its place in the Categories tab. Mac apps also declare a category in Xcode, and Apple says the two should match.
The full list of App Store categories
Apple's category page lists 27 entries. Apple does not print a count itself, and the number you see quoted elsewhere varies between 25 and 27 depending on whether Kids, Safari Extensions and Games are counted. The table below follows Apple's list, with a short summary of what Apple says belongs in each.
| Category | What belongs there |
|---|---|
| Books | Interactive versions of content traditionally found in print: stories, comics, e-readers, graphic novels |
| Business | Tools for running a business or collaborating: document management, CRM, remote desktop, job search, point of sale |
| Developer Tools | Coding, testing, debugging and distribution tools |
| Education | Interactive learning on a skill or subject: languages, test prep, early learning, school portals |
| Entertainment | Interactive apps built to entertain: TV and movies, fan clubs, ticketing, voice changers |
| Finance | Banking, investing, budgeting, tax, insurance |
| Food & Drink | Recipes, cooking guides, restaurant reviews, dietary and allergy apps |
| Games | Single-player or multiplayer games, split further into subcategories |
| Graphics & Design | Drawing, illustration, image editing and vector design tools |
| Health & Fitness | Workout tracking, running, yoga, meditation, weight loss, stress management |
| Kids | Apps designed for children aged 11 and under (iOS and iPadOS only) |
| Lifestyle | General-interest subjects: real estate, parenting, fashion, hobbies, home improvement |
| Magazines & Newspapers | Issue-based periodicals sold by auto-renewing subscription |
| Medical | Medical education, health reference and record-keeping for patients or professionals |
| Music | Listening, discovery, recording and composing |
| Navigation | Maps, driving and walking directions, transit, fuel finders |
| News | Current-events coverage from digital or broadcast outlets, newsreaders and digests |
| Photo & Video | Capturing, editing, storing and sharing photos and video |
| Productivity | Task and calendar management, notes, translation, email clients, cloud storage |
| Reference | Dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases and how-to references |
| Safari Extensions | Extensions for Safari such as ad blockers and password managers |
| Shopping | Stores, marketplaces, coupons and product reviews |
| Social Networking | Messaging, communities, photo and video sharing, dating |
| Sports | Teams, leagues, score trackers, fantasy companions, sports news |
| Travel | Trip planning, flight tracking, hotel and fare booking, city guides |
| Utilities | Single-task tools: calculators, scanners, converters, flashlights, remote controls |
| Weather | Forecasts, radar and severe-weather alerts |
Two details are easy to miss. Dating apps have no category of their own on the App Store; Apple lists dating as an example under Social Networking. And Stickers is a separate case that does not appear in the main list, covered below.
Games subcategories
Games is the only mainstream App Store category with subcategories. A game can carry up to two, and each subcategory has its own browse page and its own chart, so the choice affects where a game can be found.
On October 5, 2026 the US App Store offered 16 game genres as chart filters: Action, Adventure, Board, Card, Casino, Casual, Family, Music, Puzzle, Racing, Role-Playing, Simulation, Sports, Strategy, Trivia and Word. Older lists often add Dice and Educational. Both still exist in Apple's legacy genre data but are not offered as chart filters on the live store today.
Apple's advice is short: if you are unsure which subcategory fits, look at the kinds of games already in each one before choosing.
Primary vs secondary category
The primary category is required and carries the browse, filter and tab placement described above. The secondary category is optional, and Apple is specific about what it does: its search documentation says both the primary and the secondary category are indexed by the search algorithm.
That is all Apple claims for it. No Apple page says the secondary category earns a second browse listing or a chart position, although plenty of ASO articles state it as fact.
The secondary category does have side effects outside discovery, and they are worth knowing before you fill it in:
- Screen-time grouping. An app with Entertainment or Games as its primary or secondary category is placed in the matching Time Allowance group that parents can limit on iOS 27 and later.
- Medical declaration. An app available in the US, UK or EU with Health & Fitness or Medical as either category has to complete Apple's regulated medical device declaration.
So the rule for the secondary category is simple: add it when it is true of the app, and leave it empty when it is not.
Special cases: Kids, Stickers, News and Mac
Kids
Kids is not chosen from the category menu. You tick Made for Kids in App Store Connect, pick an age band (5 and under, 6 to 8, or 9 to 11), and the app is reviewed against Apple's Kids rules. The app still gets a normal primary and secondary category on top.
Three constraints apply. The app's calculated age rating has to be 4+ or 9+. Kids apps face limits on third-party analytics and advertising and need parental gates around links and purchases. And App Store Connect Help states that the Made for Kids selection cannot be changed once the app is approved, so treat it as a one-way decision.
Stickers
The Stickers category exists only on the App Store for iMessage and is open only to standalone sticker packs and iMessage apps. Standalone sticker packs are not shown in categories on the iPhone and iPad App Store at all; people find them through search. An iOS app with a sticker extension keeps the host app's categories.
News vs Magazines & Newspapers
Apple splits these by publishing model. Issue-based periodicals and interactive versions of print titles, sold by auto-renewing subscription, belong in Magazines & Newspapers. Newsreaders, digests and frequently updated digital or broadcast outlets belong in News.
Mac App Store
The Mac App Store uses a shorter list. On October 5, 2026 its chart filters showed 20 categories, without Books, Food & Drink, Navigation, Shopping, Kids or Magazines & Newspapers.
Google Play categories
Google Play asks for an application type first, app or game, and then a single category. There is no secondary category. Google's category and tags help page lists 32 app categories and 17 game categories.
App categories (32): Art and Design, Auto and Vehicles, Beauty, Books and Reference, Business, Comics, Communications, Dating, Education, Entertainment, Events, Finance, Food and Drink, Health and Fitness, House and Home, Libraries and Demo, Lifestyle, Maps and Navigation, Medical, Music and Audio, News and Magazines, Parenting, Personalization, Photography, Productivity, Shopping, Social, Sports, Tools, Travel and Local, Video Players and Editors, Weather.
Game categories (17): Action, Adventure, Arcade, Board, Card, Casino, Casual, Educational, Music, Puzzle, Racing, Role Playing, Simulation, Sports, Strategy, Trivia, Word.
Two Google-specific rules matter. A News and Magazines app has to file Google's News apps declaration. And free games are listed on Google Play Games on PC by default as well as on the phone store.
How App Store and Google Play categories differ
| App Store | Google Play | |
|---|---|---|
| Categories | 27, with Games split into subcategories | 32 app categories and 17 game categories |
| How many you choose | One primary, one optional secondary, up to two Games subcategories | One category |
| Tags | Generated by Apple from your metadata; you can only deselect them (US only) | You choose up to five |
| Changing it | Ships with a new app version | Edited in Play Console store settings |
| Stated role in search | Primary category is a named text-relevance match | Categories and tags help users search and discover; not listed as a ranking factor |
The two lists do not map one to one. Google Play has categories with no App Store equivalent by name, including Dating, Events, Parenting, Beauty, Comics, Auto and Vehicles, House and Home, Personalization and Tools. If you publish on both stores, choose each category on that store's own terms.
How to choose a category
Apple gives three tests, in this order:
- Purpose. Which category best describes the app's main function or subject?
- Where users look. Would your audience think of the app as, say, a social network or a photography app?
- Where similar apps sit. Check how comparable apps are categorized, because users already know to look there.
Apple's own example is a photo-sharing social app, which could reasonably pick Photo & Video or Social Networking as primary.
Notice what is missing. Apple's guidance never mentions picking a quieter category to rank more easily, which is the first tip in many ASO articles. Competition is a fair tie-breaker when two categories both pass Apple's three tests. It is not a reason to pick a category the app does not belong in.
A practical way to run the decision:
- Write down the one thing the app does. If you need the word "and", write both halves.
- List the two or three categories that description could fit.
- Look up five direct competitors and note their primary category on each store.
- If the competitors agree, follow them. If they split, pick the category that matches the search terms you are targeting, since the primary category counts as a text match on the App Store.
- Put the runner-up in the secondary slot, provided it is accurate and its side effects do not cause you problems.
Category choice is one part of a store listing. The rest of the work is covered in our App Store Optimization guide, and the tools that show competitors' categories and chart positions are compared in our list of ASO tools. Agencies that handle the whole listing are covered in our comparison of ASO services.
How many apps are in each category
Neither Apple nor Google publishes app counts by category. The figures below are third-party tracker estimates, so read them as approximate sizes, not official numbers.
| Store | Total apps | Games | Largest categories |
|---|---|---|---|
| App Store | 2,694,445 | 258,366 (9.6%) | Utilities, Business and Education, each with roughly 270,000 to 280,000 apps, followed by Games and Lifestyle |
| Google Play | 2,601,224 | 314,015 (12.1%) | Education (about 287,000), Business (about 217,000) and Tools (about 205,000) |
Source: 42matters App Store and Google Play statistics, both dated October 5, 2026. Trackers count differently: AppBrain, for example, lists about 2.0 million Google Play apps on the same date, with Education also the largest category.
Size is not the same as difficulty. A big category has more competitors but also more people browsing it (our list of the most popular apps shows where the largest audiences sit), and neither store publishes how many downloads a chart position takes. Any download threshold you see quoted for a category rank is an estimate from an analytics vendor.
Can you change your category later?
Yes on both stores, with different mechanics.
App Store. Apple's table of editable properties marks which fields can be changed at any time without submitting a new version. Primary and secondary category are not among them. In practice a category change ships with a new app version, which goes through App Review, and Apple notes that store changes can take up to 24 hours to appear. Because the category name is indexed for search, expect your keyword rankings to shift after the change.
Google Play. The category is edited in Play Console under Grow users, Store presence, Store settings. Google says changes may take up to 24 hours to show on the listing.
Apple can also change the category itself. App Review Guideline 2.3.5 asks developers to pick the most appropriate category and adds that if you are way off, "we may change the category for you." Other Apple pages go further and call an irrelevant category grounds for rejection. Rejection is possible; it is not automatic.
Tags: the newer layer on top of categories
Categories are no longer the only way the stores sort apps.
App Store Tags. Announced at WWDC 2025, tags are short labels that Apple generates from your metadata using language models, with human review. They appear in search results and on product pages, and tapping one shows other apps with the same tag. According to Apple's help page on app tags, they are currently shown only on the US App Store, and developers cannot add tags, only deselect ones they do not want. Apple warns that deselecting all of them may affect discoverability.
Google Play tags. Here the developer chooses, up to a maximum of five. Google's rule is that a tag's relevance should be obvious to someone who has never used the app, from the store listing or the first in-app experience. It advises changing tags only after significant changes to the app.
Claims about categories that the documentation does not support
| Common claim | What Apple and Google actually say |
|---|---|
| A secondary category gets you a second chart or browse listing | Apple says only that the secondary category is indexed by search |
| Choose the least competitive category | Apple's criteria are purpose, user expectation and where similar apps sit; competition is not mentioned |
| A wrong category means automatic rejection | Apple may change the category for you, and may reject; neither is automatic |
| You can change your category whenever you like | On the App Store it needs a new version, and Made for Kids cannot be undone after approval |
| Apps are ranked against others in the same category by session length and update frequency | Apple names text relevance and user behavior such as downloads and ratings; Google names ratings, reviews, downloads and undisclosed other factors |
FAQs
How many categories does the App Store have?
Apple's category guidance lists 27 categories, including Games, Kids and Safari Extensions. Stickers is handled separately on the App Store for iMessage, and the Mac App Store uses a shorter list of 20.
Can an app be in two App Store categories?
Yes. An app has one required primary category and one optional secondary category. A game can also have up to two Games subcategories.
Does the category affect App Store search ranking?
Yes, to a degree. Apple lists the primary category alongside the title, subtitle and keywords as a text-relevance match, and says the secondary category is indexed too. User behavior such as downloads and ratings also counts.
How many categories does Google Play have?
Google's developer documentation lists 32 app categories and 17 game categories. Each app or game gets one category and up to five tags.
Do I need to submit an update to change my App Store category?
In practice, yes. The category fields are not among the properties Apple lets you edit without a new version, so the change is made as part of an app update that goes through App Review.
Sources
- Apple Developer: Choosing a category, Search and Discovery on the App Store
- Apple Developer: App Review Guidelines (last updated June 8, 2026), guidelines 1.3 and 2.3.5
- App Store Connect Help: App information, editable properties, age ratings and app tags
- Google Play Console Help: Choose a category and tags for your app or game
- 42matters and AppBrain store statistics, both dated October 5, 2026 (third-party estimates)
Category lists and counts were checked against the live US App Store and the pages above on October 5, 2026.