Free Up Disk Space Cleaning Xcode Junk

Free Up Disk Space Cleaning Xcode Junk | Generated by AI

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Good question 👍 Xcode (and iOS Simulator) can accumulate a lot of junk over time—build cache, derived data, simulator devices, device support files, logs, etc. Cleaning them up frees gigabytes. Here’s a structured approach:

1. Clear Derived Data (Build Cache)

This removes old build products, intermediates, and indexes.

From Xcode UI: Xcode → Settings → Locations → Derived Data → click the arrow → delete folders.

From Terminal:

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/*

2. Clean Simulator Data

Reset or delete simulator contents:
```
xcrun simctl erase all
```
(erases apps & data, but keeps device definitions)
To remove all unused simulator devices (if you’ve accumulated old iOS versions):
```
xcrun simctl delete unavailable
```
To delete all simulator devices (be careful, will remove everything):
```
xcrun simctl delete all
```

Manually delete heavy directories:

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/*

3. Remove Old Device Support Files

When you connect real devices, Xcode downloads debugging symbols for each iOS version. They pile up.

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/iOS\ DeviceSupport/*

4. Clean Archives

App archives from “Product → Archive” consume a lot.

From Organizer in Xcode → Archives → delete old ones.

Or via Terminal:

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives/*

5. Clean Logs

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DocumentationCache/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/ios device logs/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Logs/CoreSimulator/*

6. Clean Derived Indexes & Module Cache

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedDataModuleCache/*

7. Optional: Full Reset

If you want to reset Xcode-related caches completely:

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/*

(This removes everything: simulators, archives, derived data, etc. Next Xcode launch will feel “fresh install.”)

⚠️ Tips

Always quit Xcode and Simulator before running these commands.
Use du -sh ~/Library/Developer/* to see which folders are largest.
Sometimes Clean Build Folder (⇧⌘K) in Xcode is enough, but deep cleaning saves more space.

Do you want me to give you a single script you can run to clean all the common junk in one go (with optional flags)?

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