Where Does the iOS Simulator Keep Device Data?
Where the iOS Simulator keeps device folders by UDID on Mac, and the simctl commands that manage them.
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Each iOS Simulator device lives in its own UDID named folder under ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices. Inside sits device.plist (which simulator this is) plus a data folder mirroring an iPhone filesystem: apps, media, preferences and all.
The folders are deliberately opaque: UDIDs instead of iPhone 15 Pro labels. xcrun simctl list devices maps names to UDIDs, and Finder stays hidden from Library anyway, so the terminal is the practical interface. Old runtimes pile up across Xcode upgrades, which is where the gigabytes come from.
Where Xcode stores this, by platform
~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices
Use Go > Go to Folder in Finder to reach it. Map UDIDs to names with xcrun simctl list devices. Prune dead runtimes with xcrun simctl delete unavailable instead of deleting by hand.
Frequently asked questions
The Simulator folder is enormous. How do I clean it safely?
Run xcrun simctl delete unavailable. It removes simulators tied to Xcode versions you no longer have, which is the safe bulk cleanup. Deleting the whole Devices folder works too but forces every simulator to reinstall from scratch.
Where is my app data inside a specific simulator?
Run xcrun simctl get_app_container <device> <bundle-id>. It prints the data container for that app on that simulator, including the Documents and Library folders your code actually writes to. Way faster than digging through UDID folders by hand.
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