The requirements, in full

Apple Podcasts has the strictest artwork rules of the major directories, so artwork that passes Apple clears the core technical requirements used by most of them. Individual platforms can still have their own extras, so check anywhere you publish that matters to you. Apple's requirements are:

  • Perfectly square. A 1:1 ratio, exactly. 1400 × 1401 is rejected.
  • Between 1400 × 1400 and 3000 × 3000 pixels.
  • JPEG or PNG. Not WebP, HEIC, TIFF or PDF.
  • RGB colour space. CMYK exports from print tools will fail.
  • At a direct, public URL. The image must resolve to the file itself. A Dropbox or Google Drive sharing link points at a web page, not an image, and will not work.

DPI is not a requirement despite frequently appearing in advice articles. Directories measure pixel dimensions; the DPI number embedded in the file is metadata for print and is ignored entirely.

The check nobody runs

Every rule above is mechanical and a validator can tell you whether you passed. The thing that actually determines whether your artwork works is not on that list.

Your cover is displayed as a small square in a list of other small squares far more often than it is seen large. In a library view it may be 55 pixels wide. That thumbnail is doing more work than your show description, your website and your first three episode titles combined.

That is why this tool renders your artwork at three real display sizes rather than just reporting dimensions. Look at the smallest one and ask whether you could read the title if you did not already know what it said.

If your artwork is rejected

Rejection messages from directories are often more generic than the actual problem. Work through the checks above in order — square first, then dimensions, then format. If all three pass and the artwork is still rejected, the cause is usually the URL rather than the image: confirm the artwork link in your feed resolves directly to the image file and is publicly reachable without a login.

The full list of things a directory checks before accepting a show is in the podcast distribution checklist, and you can test everything else about your feed with the RSS feed validator.