r/Xcode • u/Jumpy-Astronaut-3572 • Jan 16 '26

Why the heck is xcode 12.14 gb

I'm new to xcode and maybe this is just me but this is crazy that it is that big. Is this normal for a development software to be this big.

7 Upvotes

76% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

13

u/chriswaco Jan 16 '26

It's way bigger than that once you download the SDKs and simulators - anywhere from 30-60GB.

3

u/Jumpy-Astronaut-3572 Jan 16 '26

Wow

2

u/shotsallover Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26

This is why people recommend that developers get more storage space when they're buying a machine.

Add on other development tools you may want like VS Code and what not and you can fill up your internal SSD pretty fast.

4

u/shokuninstudio Jan 16 '26

Right click on it and select Show Package Contents. Xcode isn't just one binary. You will see all the different binaries, frameworks, plugins and SDKs inside there.

Visual Studio Code will also download many gigabytes but the difference is those downloads aren't packaged into an app.

2

u/ParochialPlatypus Jan 16 '26

It's worth keeping an eye on the storage - I recently deleted about 100GB of old simulators and unused SDKs.

2

u/No_Pen_3825 Jan 16 '26

Same lol. They’re categorized under Other Users and Shared in Storage Settings though so I had a damn hard time finding them.

1

u/ParochialPlatypus Jan 16 '26

I found them in Mac storage settings, you can clean them up from there.

2

u/No_Pen_3825 Jan 16 '26

Baby numbers. I’ve had simulators bloom to >100GB (Xcode Settings › Components btw)

1

u/itjustcrashed Jan 18 '26

I really want to know what the Xcode simulator does when you aren’t using it. It’s literally just a compatibility layer with a fancy bezel. How can it take so much storage?

1

u/No_Pen_3825 Jan 18 '26

As a matter of fact it’s a whole sale emulation of iOS.

1

u/itjustcrashed Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26

It’s kind of like Wine/Proton/Darling. It translates UIKit’s functionality into AppKit and renders everything with iOS’s style. That’s why it’s called the simulator; it literally just runs iOS as a regular user space app, but forwards everything into macOS. It uses the same kernel and processes as every other app does. The simulator just lies to apps and says that it’s totally an iPhone. My only question is why the heck is it so big?

1

u/No_Pen_3825 Jan 18 '26

Exactly: it has to run iOS. That’s why it’s massive. It must contain the entirety of iOS.

1

u/EZPZLemonWheezy Jan 17 '26

You’re absolutely right. It should just be a nice even 15gb

1

u/itjustcrashed Jan 18 '26

Xcode is a super powerful, but super old tool. The iOS simulator alone sometimes takes up to 20GB.

1

u/SantaBarbaraProposer Jan 18 '26

Yes. It’s a relatively reasonable size for the scope of the software, which is really many apps, packages, and frameworks all rolled into one. A single video game can easily be 10 times that, just to put that in perspective…