Apple Podcasts isn’t known for the clarity in communication and this is no more apparent than when your artwork doesn’t meet their standards. They list the following requirements:

Size: square; minimum 1400 x 1400 pixels and maximum 3000 x 3000 pixels (preferred)

Resolution: 72 dpi

File type: JPEG or PNG

Colorspace: RGB

But another thing that can cause your artwork to be rejected is the file size. While it’s not listed, if you artwork is over 500-550 kb there is a good chance it will be rejected.

Fortunately, this is something that is really easy to fix. All you need is an image manipulation tool like Photoshop or GIMP.

How to reduce your podcast’s artwork’s file size with Photoshop

Open your image in Photoshop

Export your image by going to File > Export > Export as…

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Once the export menu opens we need to change the image from PNG to JPG if it’s not already. Just by doing that you can reduce the file size substantially. In the example, the image went from 10 mb to 4.6 mb.

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The next step is to adjust the image quality. For most images, you can safely drop it down to 80% without issue. From there, keep lowering it until you get under 500 kb or you start noticing degradation in the image.

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If adjusting the image quality doesn’t get you to under 500 kb, then the next step is to lower the resolution. Ideally, we would keep it at 3000px X 3000px but that’s not always possible such as in the case of this example. Because there is so much detail in the image lowering the image quality isn’t enough.

Right below the image quality section you’ll find the image size settings. Start lowering that until you get under 500 kb but don’t go below 1400 px.

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After all that, you should have an image that is under 500 kb that will be accepted by Apple Podcasts and still looks great!

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How to reduce your podcast’s artwork’s file size with GIMP

If you don’t have access to Photoshop and don’t want to pay for expensive software for this task, you can easily reduce the file size of your podcast artwork with the free software, GIMP. You can download GIMP at https://www.gimp.org/downloads/.

Open your image in GIMP

Export your image by going to File > Export As…

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Rename image and change extension to .jpg and click “Export”. Just by converting an image from PNG to JPG can reduce the file size tremendously.

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Check the box to “Show preview in image window”. This will then show you what the file size will be as well as open a new preview window. This will preview the image as you change the settings so you can make sure you don’t lower the image quality too much.

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From there, lower the “Quality” setting until the image is below 500 kb or you start to notice degradation in the image. In my example image, I lowered the quality to 70% and still was at 1 mb. So now I need to lower the resolution to get it under 500 kb.

Go to Image > Scale Image… and lower the Width/Height. Make sure both values are the same so that it’s a square image and don’t go lower than 1400 px.

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Now you are ready to export the image again. Re-open the export menu and lower the image quality again until the image is below 500 kb. You may need to go between scaling the image and reducing the quality until you’re satisfied.

Resubmit the show to Apple Podcasts

Once your image is finished, you’re ready to re-submit the show to Apple Podcasts. Upload your new podcast artwork to you media host with a different file name (otherwise Apple may not recognize that it’s new) and re-submit the show in Apple.