AppTraction Docs

Everything needed to set up and get the most out of AppTraction.

Getting started

AppTraction runs on any Mac with macOS 26 Tahoe or later.

  1. Download AppTraction and move it to your Applications folder.
  2. Open it. Your free 14-day trial will start right away, with all features included.
  3. Click Add Account & Choose Apps… to connect App Store Connect.

Want to look around before connecting your own account? Choose File › Add Demo App to explore with sample data.

Getting around

Your apps appear as icons down the left edge of the sidebar. Click one, or press ⌘1 through ⌘9, to switch apps. Each app has these screens:

  • Insights, Listing, and Reviews at the top.
  • Analytics, with your App Store, Sales, and Usage numbers, and Territories.
  • Graphs and Comparisons you’ve made.

Press Control-Tab to move to the next screen.

Connecting App Store Connect

AppTraction talks to Apple using an App Store Connect API key. Only your team’s Account Holder or an Admin can create keys.

Choose your keys

  • One Admin key. The easiest choice. It covers analytics, reviews, and your listing.
  • Two limited keys. A Sales and Reports key for analytics and reviews, plus an optional Marketing key so AppTraction can read and update your App Store listing.

Create a key

  1. In App Store Connect, open Users and Access › Integrations › App Store Connect API.
  2. Click +, give the key a name like “AppTraction Analytics,” choose its role, and click Generate.
  3. Click Download to save the key file. Apple lets you download each key only once, so keep it somewhere safe.

Add it to AppTraction

  1. Click Choose Key File… and pick the file you downloaded. AppTraction will read the Key ID from its name.
  2. Paste the Issuer ID from the top of the App Store Connect API keys page.
  3. Name the account, then choose which apps to track.

AppTraction will check each key with Apple before saving it, then store it in your Mac’s Keychain.

Turn on analytics reports

Apple only makes analytics reports for an app after someone with an Admin key asks for them. If AppTraction says “Apple isn’t making analytics reports for this app yet,” click Activate… and pick one of these:

  • Use an Admin key. AppTraction will use it for this one request, then forget it.
  • Run an open-source tool in Terminal. Our asc-tools script does the same thing.
  • Ask someone with an Admin key on your team.

Add your vendor number (optional)

With your vendor number, AppTraction can bring in a year of downloads, sales, and subscriptions within minutes, instead of waiting days for Apple’s analytics. It’s also needed for Retention Rate and Intro Offer Conversion Rate.

  1. In App Store Connect, open Payments and Financial Reports. Your vendor number is in the top-left corner. It’s all digits, and it’s not your team ID.
  2. In AppTraction, open Settings › Accounts, edit the account, and paste it into Vendor number. While an app is still waiting for data, you can also click Show Downloads & Sales…

One vendor number covers every app in the account. It works with Admin, Finance, and Sales and Reports keys. (If an agreement in App Store Connect is waiting to be accepted, Apple won’t share sales reports until the Account Holder accepts it under Business.)

Your first sync

Your listing, ratings, and reviews will show up right away. Apple will usually deliver the first analytics within a day or two, and importing all of your available history can take up to 4 days.

AppTraction downloads discovery and engagement, where downloads came from, downloads, installs and deletions, sessions, crashes, purchases, subscriptions, and pre-orders. Ratings come from about 180 App Store countries and refresh once a day. New written reviews are checked every hour.

Staying up to date

AppTraction can keep refreshing in the background, even when its window is closed. Choose how often in Settings › General › Refresh analytics, from every hour to manually only. To refresh now, click Refresh in the toolbar or use the AppTraction menu bar icon .

Setting up AI

Chat, reports, listing checks, and suggested review replies use an AI provider you set up yourself. AppTraction doesn’t run its own AI service, and usage counts against your own plan with the provider.

  • Claude Code from Anthropic. Install Claude Code and sign in.
  • Codex from OpenAI. Install Codex and sign in.
  • OpenRouter. Install Codex, then add your OpenRouter API key.

Pick your provider, model, and effort in Settings › Agents. If you haven’t signed in yet, AppTraction can open your browser to do it.

AI is optional. Without it, you still get your numbers, graphs, most Insights, and reviews.

Check your usage

Under Usage in Settings › Agents, you can see how many tokens AppTraction has used with your provider today and over the last 7 days. Cached tokens are text the AI re-reads at each step, like your app’s data, and they cost far less than uncached tokens. For your overall usage and plan limits, check your provider’s own account page.

Insights

AppTraction watches your apps, and will add an Insight card whenever it notices something worth knowing. Categories include Discovery, Conversion, Revenue, Ratings, Markets, Retention, Milestones, and Reports. Use Problems to see only the things that need attention, and sort by latest, oldest, severity, or category.

Most Insights are worked out on your Mac without AI. Listing checks, like spotting typos or suggesting a better subtitle, use your AI provider. Listing and review Insights will appear almost right away, while analytics Insights will start once Apple’s data arrives.

To ask about any card, click its chat button .

Choose which Insights you see

Go to Settings › Insights and click Choose Insights to Show…, then uncheck any you don’t want. AppTraction will keep watching for them, so if you turn one back on later, anything it found in the meantime will come back too.

Reports

AppTraction can write a report for each of your apps for every week (Monday to Sunday), month, and year. Each one will be ready a day or two after its period ends (since Apple’s data is typically delayed by that much) and will show up as a card in Insights. Click Read Report to open it. AppTraction works out the numbers, and your AI provider writes the summary.

Reports open with the key numbers and a few charts, then cover downloads and visibility, usage, sales, subscriptions and refunds, ratings, where downloads came from, and things to watch. To export a report as a PDF, Markdown, or plain text, click Save.

Reports are on by default. To turn some or all of them off, go to Settings › Insights › Automatic reports.

Reviews

Pick an app and click Reviews in the sidebar to read every written review from every App Store country. The top of the screen shows your average rating and total number of ratings worldwide.

Find the reviews you want

  • Sort. Click the heading above the list to choose Most Recent, Most Favorable, or Most Critical.
  • Filter. Use the buttons under the heading to show just one platform, one version, certain star ratings, reviews with or without your response, or the last 7, 30, or 90 days.
  • Start over. Click Clear Filters.

Reply to a review

  1. Click Reply under the review.
  2. Write your reply.
  3. Click Send Reply, or press ⌘↩.

Replies are public. Apple will check each one before it appears on the App Store, so it will be marked Pending for a little while. To change or remove a reply, click Edit next to it.

Let AI suggest a reply

In the reply window, click Suggest Reply. Anything you’ve already typed will be used as notes, like “mention that 4.3 fixes this.” The AI will read the review, your app’s description and latest release notes, and a few of your past replies so it sounds like you.

Edit the suggestion as you like, or click Back to My Draft. Nothing will be sent until you click Send Reply.

Reviews in other languages

When a review is in a language your Mac doesn’t use, click Translate under it. Click Show Original to switch back.

To answer in the reviewer’s language, write your reply, then click the translate button in the reply window (for example, Translate to German).

Translation uses your Mac’s built-in translator, so the text never leaves your Mac. The first time you translate a new language, macOS may ask to download it.

Stay on top of new reviews

AppTraction will let you know when new reviews arrive. Insights will also tell you when:

  • Low-star reviews are waiting for a reply.
  • A burst of low-star reviews comes in.
  • A new version is getting lower-rated reviews than earlier ones.

Click Open Reviews on one of these cards to see just the reviews it’s about.

Chat can read your reviews too. Try “What are people complaining about lately?” or “Which reviews still need a reply?” Chat can help you draft replies, but you send them from the Reviews screen.

Chat

Click Chat in the toolbar, or press Option-Command-I, to ask about whatever you’re looking at. The AI can read your apps, daily metrics and their breakdowns, timeline events, your App Store listing, and your reviews. It can also search the web.

A few good questions to start with:

  • “Why did sales jump in March?”
  • “Did version 4.2 help conversion?”
  • “Which countries are growing fastest?”
  • “What should I change in my subtitle?”
  • “What do people love most about my app?”

Every report has a Chat About This button, and every Insight card has a chat button . AI can make mistakes, so double-check anything important.

Your listing

The Listing screen shows your App Store listing for each platform, version, and language, and lets you write, edit, and upload screenshots for the version you’re preparing. Text that’s been changed for your next release is marked Edited.

Review your listing

AppTraction checks your listing on its own and will add an Insight when something new turns up. You can also review any version yourself, whenever you like. It’s good practice to perform a review just before submitting an update.

  1. Open Listing and choose the platform and version you want to check.
  2. Click Review Listing.

The results will appear right on the Listing screen, with every problem AppTraction finds, including pre-existing ones. Quick checks will come first, like repeated or wasted keywords, a subtitle that repeats your title, keywords or a subtitle with room to spare, a description that’s too short, and a title or subtitle left untranslated. Then the AI will read your title, subtitle, and description in each language and point out things like typos and awkward wording. If you haven’t set up AI, you’ll still get the quick checks.

A manual review won’t add Insight cards.

Fix problems

Click Fix… next to a problem, either in your listing review or on an Insight card. Chat can suggest changes too. Either way, you’ll see Suggested Changes, with the current and suggested text for each platform and language.

Uncheck anything you don’t want, edit what you like, then click Apply Changes. Nothing will be sent to Apple until you do.

Write and edit your listing

Click Edit… to change the text of a version that’s being prepared. Each field will show how much of Apple’s character limit you’ve used. Released versions can’t be edited, since Apple has already published them.

While you’re editing your primary language, any field you’ve written will also offer to translate itself into the other languages on that version. Tick the box under the field, and your AI provider will do the translating. The box is only on the primary language, since that’s what translations are made from.

Click Review Changes when you’re done. You’ll get the same Suggested Changes review a fix uses, so nothing will reach Apple until you click Apply Changes.

Every field has a Suggest button that will have your AI provider write it for you. Anything you’ve typed first will be used as notes, so you can jot “shorter, lead with the timer,” or leave a rough draft to be polished. To put your own words back, click Back to My Draft.

A suggestion will draw on the rest of your listing: your other fields, a summary of your app, and, when you’re writing a language other than your primary one, the text in that primary language. For What’s New, it will also read your past release notes. Suggestions need AI set up in Settings › Agents.

Chat can write listing changes too. Ask for what you want, and a Review Changes… button will appear under its answer, opening that same review.

Add a version or a language

Both live in the menus at the top of the Listing screen.

  • A version. Open the version menu and choose New Version…, enter a version number, then click Create Version. AppTraction will add it in App Store Connect and carry your current text over, giving you a listing to work on. It’s unavailable while you already have a version being prepared.
  • A language. Open the language menu and choose New Language…, pick the language, and give your app its name there. Everything else will start empty, so use Edit… to write it, or translate it from your primary language.

Upload screenshots

The Screenshots card on the Listing screen shows the current screenshots for each display size. To replace them for every language at once:

  1. Choose the version you’re preparing and click Upload… on the Screenshots card.
  2. Drop a folder of screenshots on the window, or click Choose Folder…
  3. Review where each image will go, then click Upload.

Name each image with its language and position, like “01-de.png,” or put each language in its own folder, like “de/01.png.” AppTraction will work out the display size from each image’s dimensions. Images can be PNG or JPEG, up to 10 per language and display size.

Before anything is sent, the preview grid will show a row for each language saying what will change, like “3 new” or “Will replace 5,” along with any files that couldn’t be placed and why. Double-click a thumbnail to see it full size.

Each language and display size will end up matching your folder exactly, so screenshots in App Store Connect that aren’t in the folder will be removed. Images that are already there won’t be sent again, so uploading the same folder later will only send what changed. Nothing will appear on the App Store until that version is released.

Screenshots can only be uploaded for languages already on that version, so add any new ones first. App previews (videos) aren’t supported.

Editing your listing, applying changes, and uploading screenshots needs a Marketing, App Manager, or Admin key.

Territories

Pick an app and click Territories in the sidebar to see how it’s doing in every App Store country. Choose a date range at the top, and the map and table will both update.

The map is colored by how many first-time downloads each country brought in, from pale to dark. Countries with nothing in the range are gray. To color the map by something else, click a column heading in the table below it. That will sort the table too. Hover over any country to see its figure for that column and its share of your total.

The table

You’ll see a row for every country you’ve had activity in. The columns are:

  • Impressions and Unique page views, how many people saw your app and opened its page.
  • Conversion rate, the share of page views that became downloads.
  • First-time downloads and Redownloads.
  • Sales, what you earned there, in your own currency.
  • Change, how that country moved compared with the period before.
  • Share, how much of your worldwide total came from there.

Territories is a map and a table. To graph a country over time or compare two periods, use the App Store, Sales, and Usage screens, which can break your numbers down by country.

Graphs, Compare, and events

The App Store, Sales, and Usage screens show your numbers daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. Choose By event to see totals for each stretch between your timeline events.

  • Graph a column. Click the graph button next to any column heading. If you’ve selected some rows, it will graph just those. Otherwise it will graph all your data. You can also right-click a heading to choose.
  • Graph a range. Select some rows and choose Graph this range.
  • Learn what a column means. Click the info button next to its heading.
  • Compare two periods. Select a range, choose Compare…, select a second range, then click Compare 2 ranges. AppTraction will show every metric side by side.
  • Add events. Choose File › Manage Events… or right-click an app in the sidebar and choose Add Timeline Event…. Events can be versions, metadata changes, campaigns, price changes, App Store features, content, or anything else.

Graphs can break your numbers down by source, country, device, version, and more. For a country-by-country view of a whole period, see Territories. To share a graph or save it as a PDF, click its share button .

New App Store versions will be added as events automatically. You can turn that off in Settings › General.

Cards

The cards above the table each show one number over a span of time, how it changed, and a small chart. Hover over a bar to see its figure and dates, or click a card to open its graph over the same dates. Each app keeps its own cards for each screen.

  • Add a card. Click the + button at the end of the row with Daily and Weekly, or right-click a column heading and choose Add as Card.
  • Reorder cards. Drag them into the order you want.

Right-click a card to change it:

  • Metric: any column from this screen, or from the other screens in their own submenus.
  • Time Span: the last 7, 28, 30, or 90 days, this month, last month, this year, or all time.
  • Compare With: the period just before, the same period last year, or nothing. All Time has nothing before it to compare with.
  • Chart: bars, a line, or no chart.
  • Color: one of ten colors.
  • Duplicate or Remove Card.
  • Use These Cards for All Apps… gives every app this screen’s cards.

Select a few rows in the table and every card will show those dates instead. Select two ranges with Compare… and the cards will compare the later one with the earlier one. Press Esc or click an empty spot to go back.

MCP server

AppTraction includes a read-only MCP server, so other AI tools you use can read your AppTraction data. It can list your apps, and read daily metrics, totals, comparisons, breakdowns, events, your listing, and your reviews. It can’t change anything.

Other apps can’t reach it until you say so. Out of the box only AppTraction’s own AI can use the server, and Copy MCP Server Path will stay dim until you turn sharing on. Bear in mind that an app you share it with can read your analytics, including sales and proceeds.

  1. In AppTraction, open Settings › Connections.
  2. Turn on Allow external apps to use this MCP server.
  3. Click Copy MCP Server Path.

Claude Desktop

In Claude Desktop, open Settings › Developer › Edit Config and add AppTraction, pasting the path you copied:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apptraction": {
            "command": "paste the MCP server path here"
        }
    }
}

Restart Claude Desktop, then ask something like “Using AppTraction, how did Rise’s downloads change last month?” using one of your own app names.

Claude Code and other tools

Any tool that supports MCP over standard input and output can use the same path, with no arguments. In Claude Code, for example, run claude mcp add apptraction followed by the path.

Data shared this way will go to that tool’s AI provider.

To stop sharing, turn the setting back off. Access depends on which app is asking, so the path alone won’t open the door.

Notifications

AppTraction can notify you when there’s new data, when new reviews arrive, and when it finds a new Insight. You choose whether to turn them on when you first set up AppTraction. To change them later:

  • For new data and new reviews, go to Settings › General.
  • For new Insights, go to Settings › Insights. Insights you’ve hidden will never send notifications.

Click a notification to jump straight to it.

Your data

Everything AppTraction downloads, along with your events, chats, and reports, is stored on your Mac in ~/Library/Application Support/AppTraction. Your App Store Connect keys and any API keys stay in your Keychain. Your App Store Connect data never passes through our servers. See the privacy policy for details.

  • To remove an app and its data, right-click it in the sidebar.
  • To remove an account, its keys, and all of its data, go to Settings › Accounts.

Buying and plans

Every plan includes every feature. Choose monthly, annual, or a one-time lifetime purchase from the Pricing section. Checkout is handled by our reseller, Paddle, which also sends your receipt and handles billing questions.

Free trial

Your 14-day free trial will start the first time you open AppTraction. No credit card needed. The toolbar will show how many days you have left, with a button to buy.

When the trial ends, AppTraction will ask you to buy or enter a license key. Your data will stay on your Mac and keep updating in the background, but notifications and AI reports will pause until you unlock the app.

Buy AppTraction

Click the buy button in AppTraction to check out in your browser. When you’re done, AppTraction will unlock by itself within a few seconds. There’s nothing to type and no account to create.

You can also buy from the Pricing section. Either way, the last page of checkout will show your license key. Copy it and keep it somewhere safe. Paddle’s receipt email doesn’t include it.

Enter a license key

  1. Go to Settings › License and click Enter License Key….
  2. Paste your key and click Activate.

Lost your key? Open Settings › License on any Mac where AppTraction is unlocked, or go to apptraction.dev/find-key and enter the Transaction ID from Paddle’s receipt email. It starts with “txn_”.

More than one Mac

Use your license on up to 5 Macs. Macs that share your iCloud Keychain will unlock on their own and won’t count toward the 5. Need to move your license to a new Mac, or use more than 5? Email help@apptraction.dev.

Change plans or cancel

To cancel a subscription or update your card, go to Settings › License and click Manage Subscription…. It will open Paddle’s customer portal in your browser.

To switch plans, like from monthly to annual or lifetime, buy the new plan, then cancel the old subscription the same way.

If a payment fails, AppTraction will keep working while Paddle tries again, and the toolbar will show a button to update your card.

Getting help

Email help@apptraction.dev, or choose Help › Send AppTraction Feedback to send us a note right from the app. You can attach a file and include log files to help us find a problem. Logs may include your apps’ names and other public details, but never your keys or your sales and financial data.