iPhone Simulator location

Question

Where on my machine is the iPhone simulator installed?

I'm been trying to find where a test application I run in the simulator is stored.

score 144 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 16 '12 at 04:55

144

Simulator: ~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/

You can browse simulator files from that directory in Mac OS X.

edited Mar 16 '12 at 04:55

Besi

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answered Oct 14 '09 at 17:34

Pablo Santa Cruz

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That's not the location of the _simulator_, but the data files, which seems to be the OP's intent. – Sophie Alpert Oct 14 '09 at 17:40
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Yes. The directory I posted is what he/she is looking for. He/She'll find the test application he/she ran somewhere in that folder. – Pablo Santa Cruz Oct 14 '09 at 17:42
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You can use `~` in the path instead of `/Users/INSERT_YOUR_USER_HERE`, so it becomes: `~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/` – progrmr Nov 30 '11 at 15:05
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I took the liberty of adjusting the path with `~` like progrmr suggested. – Besi Mar 16 '12 at 03:43
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Answer is outdated, for me (xcode 4.3.3) it was in Xcode's package contents (then in `Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/iPhone Simulator.app`) as http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1567798/iphone-simulator-location#answer-10940614 mentioned – abernier Jul 31 '12 at 10:28
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for copy paste into terminal: cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/iPhone\ Simulator/ – Tony Gibbs Feb 27 '14 at 04:41
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Here's where the Simulator.app is in Xcode 5.1.1: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/iPhone\ Simulator.app – Liron Yahdav Aug 06 '14 at 20:15
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for xcode 5.1 was where mine is /Users/[USERNAME]/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/7.1/Applications/ – Deprecated Darren Aug 13 '14 at 17:41
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this answer is outdated and should be removed or unchecked – Tankista Oct 06 '17 at 08:54

Besi · Answer 2 · 2012-08-03T20:32:40.600

Update for Xcode 4.4: While the iPhone simulator is still in the same place, Apple has included a shortcut to the iPhone Simulator at:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications

Changes since Xcode 4.3.1

Please note that the new version of Xcode is now available on the Mac App Store. Hence all the stuff that used to come with an installer is now packaged into Xcode.app.

Therefore the iOS Simulator binary is located here:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/

The Apps installed in the simulator along with other configuration files are still here:

~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/

Here is an extract from the current release notes of Xcode 4.3.1

What's new in Xcode 4.3.1

Xcode is now distributed as an application, rather than as an installer. This change enables Xcode to be updated directly from the Mac App Store.

score 56 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 08 '15 at 17:29

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As of Xcode 6 and iOS 8 you’ll find it here:

~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/{cryptic number}/data/Containers/Data/Application/{cryptic number}/

or you can get it from below code execution:

 NSLog(@"Documents Directory: %@", [[[NSFileManager defaultManager] URLsForDirectory:NSDocumentDirectory inDomains:NSUserDomainMask] lastObject]);

edited Jul 08 '15 at 17:29

patridge

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answered Oct 04 '14 at 09:44

Hardik Darji

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Just to clarify, it'll be in your user Library folder, so the path would be ~/Library/Developer/ – Josh Buhler Feb 19 '15 at 18:18
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Are you sure this is for the iOS Simulator or the data that's stored by apps running in the simulator? – Awesome-o Apr 30 '17 at 20:19

mikemike396 · Answer 4 · 2014-11-24T20:27:47.783

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Xcode 6 -> /Users/{YOUR NAME}/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/{DEVICE ID}/data/Containers/Data/Application/{APPLICATION ID}/

Or print it out in Xcode console

#if TARGET_IPHONE_SIMULATOR
    NSLog(@"Documents Directory: %@", [[[NSFileManager defaultManager] URLsForDirectory:NSDocumentDirectory inDomains:NSUserDomainMask] lastObject]);
#endif

edited Nov 24 '14 at 20:27

answered Sep 23 '14 at 13:46

mikemike396

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score 24 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 24 '10 at 16:40

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The actual Simulator application itself is located at /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/iPhone Simulator

answered Jun 24 '10 at 16:40

Pete Hodgson

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score 13 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 19 '11 at 21:49

To find the most recent install of your application in the simulator, you can use this command:

find "/Users/$USER/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator" -type d -name 'YourAppName.app' -print0 | xargs -0 ls -td | head -1

Don't forget to replace YourAppName with the name of your app!

score 12 · Answer 7 · edited Jul 31 '15 at 00:09

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In Xcode 6, iOS Simulator.app is located in this location:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/iOS Simulator.app

edited Jul 31 '15 at 00:09

pkamb

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answered Sep 25 '14 at 05:07

Balaji Sekar

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score 8 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 10 '14 at 06:46

With the introduction of CoreSimulator in Xcode 6, each simulated device now has its own data. Previous versions had all devices share the same data for each version of iOS.

Devices are located in ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices. Logs are located in ~/Library/Logs/CoreSimulator

Note that ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices//data/Library/Logs is a symlink to ~/Library/Logs/CoreSimulator/.

CoreSimualtor will create an initial set of devices on first use (and after installation of older simulator runtimes). You can add or delete new devices from within Xcode.app or from the command line using 'xcrun simctl create' or 'xcrun simctl delete'

score 7 · Answer 9 · answered Jun 07 '12 at 22:15

As of 4.3.2 of Xcode for Lion, the iOS simulator is located in the contents of the app package... If you right click on xcode.app and click "Show package contents" then navigate to Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications there you will find the iOS Simulator app... Just drag it to your dock and there you go... Or you can make an Alias and drag that to your desktop (or wherever you want) for easy access to the simulator... Why Apple decided to bury it in the package, I have no clue.

Johan Dettmar · Answer 10 · 2016-04-12T10:19:40.107

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On El Capitan and Xcode 7.2 and 7.3 I found the Simulators here: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/

Simulator
Simulator (Watch)

edited Apr 12 '16 at 10:19

answered Mar 31 '16 at 12:32

Johan Dettmar

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score 6 · Answer 11 · answered Dec 12 '16 at 08:37

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From xCode 8.0 the simulator .app is located in

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications

answered Dec 12 '16 at 08:37

Steven B.

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Aravindhan · Answer 12 · 2012-05-25T04:22:58.697

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In X-Code 4.2
The Photos of the iPhone simulator are stored in

/Users/user_name/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/5.0/Media/DCIM/100APPLE

edited May 25 '12 at 04:22

answered Mar 02 '12 at 08:37

Aravindhan

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DavidODW · Answer 13 · 2016-02-19T00:50:28.887

For xcode 7, you'll find it at here

/Users/{USERNAME}/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/{CRIPTIC NUMBER}/data/Containers/Data/Application/{CRIPTIC NUMBER}/Documents/

or execute the code below in your xcode project

Objective C

NSLog(@"Documents Directory: %@", [[[NSFileManager defaultManager] URLsForDirectory:NSDocumentDirectory inDomains:NSUserDomainMask] lastObject]);

Swift

print(applicationDocumentsDirectory.path)

score 4 · Answer 14 · answered Sep 28 '14 at 23:18

The top answer is correct for location of the simulator app. But there is a secondary location where the example apps (and your app builds) are stored for the simulator to access. This is:

~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices

Each subdir is a device ID. You can find where your app is by looking in each of these dirs at data/Containers/Bundle/Application/{app_id}

score 4 · Answer 15 · answered Mar 12 '17 at 05:38

4

I found the easiest way to find it programmatically. Run the app and put NSLog() for [NSBundle MainBundle], it will show you the whole path of the app running in simulator.

answered Mar 12 '17 at 05:38

Adeel

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score 2 · Answer 16 · answered Aug 30 '14 at 22:15

A super simple and sexy way is to use Apple Script:

property findtype : quoted form of "kMDItemContentType = \"com.apple.application-bundle\""

set simulatorFolder to POSIX path of (path to application support folder from user domain) & "iPhone Simulator/"
set appFiles to paragraphs of (do shell script "mdfind -onlyin " & quoted form of simulatorFolder & " " & findtype)
if appFiles is not {} then
    set mostRecentApp to item 1 of appFiles
    tell application "Finder" to reveal ((POSIX file mostRecentApp) as alias)
    tell application "Finder" to activate
end if

Paste this into Apple Script Editor and export it as a Mac app. Then you can just run the app whenever you need a Finder window open in the sandbox. The code is courtesy StefanK at MacScripter.

score 2 · Answer 17 · answered Mar 20 '15 at 18:11

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It took me a while, but I just found mine at /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/iOS\ Simulator.app

answered Mar 20 '15 at 18:11

Chuck Bergeron

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score 1 · Answer 18 · answered Mar 24 '22 at 00:35

All of these paths keep getting outdated with each Xcode release . The best way I found (so far) is this ⤵︎

Open Xcode and launch Simulator.app
Simulator.app will now appear in your dock
Right click the app icon in the dock and select Options > Show in Finder
The app's location will appear in a Finder window

iPhone Simulator location

18 Answers18

Changes since Xcode 4.3.1

What's new in Xcode 4.3.1

Linked