Take a screenshot and record a video in iOS Simulator

There would be a time when you need to capture your app screen or record a video of your app, whether for an App Store screenshot or an App Store preview video. You can do all of this without external tools.

Take a screenshot

An easy way

For taking a screenshot, I usually launch an app in the Simulator and press ⌘ - command + s or File > New Screen Shot. The screenshot will be saved to your Desktop.

Xcrun

xcrun is a tool Apple provided to run any tool inside Xcode from the command line.

1. To take a screenshot with xcrun.
2. Run your app in the Simulator.
3. Open Terminal.app (located in /Applications/Utilities)
4. Enter the following command and hit ⏎ Return.

xcrun simctl io booted screenshot <file_name>.<file_extension>

The screenshot will be saved to your current directory. If you don't know where is the current directory, type pwd in Terminal.app and press ⏎ Return.

Example

xcrun simctl io booted screenshot myScreenshot.png

Options

You can specify the following options to the command.

• --type Can be "png", "tiff", "bmp", "gif", "jpeg". Default is png.
• --display
  • iOS: supports "internal" or "external". Default is "internal".
  • tvOS: supports only "external"
  • watchOS: supports only "internal"
• --mask For non-rectangular displays, handle the mask by policy:
  • ignored: The mask is ignored and the unmasked framebuffer is saved.
  • alpha: The mask is used as premultiplied alpha.
  • black: The mask is rendered black.

Example
The following example will take a jpeg screenshot with a mask (see round corners and a notch).

xcrun simctl io booted screenshot --type=jpeg --mask=black myScreenshot.jpeg

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Record a video

Xcrun

When it comes to recording a video, xcrun is an easy way for me (I used to record video with Quicktime, but I find it quite cumbersome).

1. Run your app in the Simulator.
2. Open Terminal.app (located in /Applications/Utilities)
3. Enter the following command and hit ⏎ Return.

xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo <file_name>.<file_extension>

4. Press ⌃ – control + c to stop recording the video.

The video will be saved to your current directory. If you don't know where is the current directory, type pwd in Terminal.app and press ⏎ Return.

Example

xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo myVideo.mov

Options

You can specify the following options to the command.

• --codec Specifies the codec type: "h264" or "hevc". Default is "hevc".
• --display
  • iOS: supports "internal" or "external". Default is "internal".
  • tvOS: supports only "external"
  • watchOS: supports only "internal"
• --mask For non-rectangular displays, handle the mask by policy:
  • ignored: The mask is ignored and the unmasked framebuffer is saved.
  • alpha: Not supported, but retained for compatibility; the mask is rendered black.
  • black: The mask is rendered black.
• --force Force the output file to be written to, even if the file already exists.

Example

xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo --code=h264 --mask=black --force myVideo.mov

All xcrun command might vary based on your Xcode and mac version. For more information, run this command:

xcrun simctl io help

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Related Resources

Building from the Command Line with Xcode FAQ