Capture iOS Simulator video for App Preview

470

votes

Okay, so we can now submit video previews of our apps on the App Store. According to Apple we should do so with an iOS8 device and OSX 10.10. The problem is you have to have all the different devices (4", 4.7", 5.5" and iPad).

Is there an alternative to this?

I am thinking of capturing a video of the simulator. The problem is the device screen is bigger than my FullHD monitor when shown in 100% resolution. Any solution that can capture a video right from the simulator in full resolution?

Edit: Since a lot of people are answering questions I'm not asking let me say: - Recording one device size and scaling it is not what I'm asking; - How to record any app preview is not what I'm asking; - How you do your previews is not what I'm asking;

What I am asking is can you record a video from the simulator in 100% resolution if it doesn't fit on the screen?

iosios-simulatorios8video-capturescreen-capture

THANKFULLY Xcode made this easy as of late. See this response by @atalayasa. – Eric

With Xcode 12 just press cmd + R in the simulator to record the screen. cmd + S to take a screenshot. – Mikkel Cortnum

24 Answers

votes

Using the new release of Xcode 12.5 you can simply record the simulator screen using ⌘ + R. For details you can visit here.

863

votes

For Xcode 8.2 or later

You can take videos and screenshots of Simulator using the xcrun simctl, a command-line utility to control the Simulator

Run your app on the simulator
Open a terminal
Run the command
- To take a screenshot
  
  xcrun simctl io booted screenshot <filename>.<file extension>
  
  For example:
  
  xcrun simctl io booted screenshot myScreenshot.png
- To take a video
  
  xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo <filename>.<file extension>
  
  For example:
  
  xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo appVideo.mov
Press ctrl + C to stop recording the video.

The default location for the created file is the current directory.

Xcode 11.2 and later gives extra options.

From Xcode 11.2 Beta Release Notes

simctl video recording now produces smaller video files, supports HEIC compression, and takes advantage of hardware encoding support where available. In addition, the ability to record video on iOS 13, tvOS 13, and watchOS 6 devices has been restored.

You could use additional flags:

xcrun simctl io --help
Set up a device IO operation.
Usage: simctl io <device> <operation> <arguments>

...

    recordVideo [--codec=<codec>] [--display=<display>] [--mask=<policy>] [--force] <file or url>
        Records the display to a QuickTime movie at the specified file or url.
        --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.

    screenshot [--type=<type>] [--display=<display>] [--mask=<policy>] <file or url>
        Saves a screenshot as a PNG to the specified file or url(use "-" for stdout).
        --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"

                     You may also specify a port by UUID
        --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.

Now you can take a screenshot in jpeg, with mask (for non-rectangular displays) and some other flags:

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

235

votes

You can use QuickTime Player to record the screen.

Open QuickTime Player
Select File from the menu
Select New Screen recording

Now from the Screen Recording window, click on the record button.

It will provide you with an option to record the entire screen or a selected portion of your screen.

You will have to make a selection of your simulator so that only the simulator portion will be recorded.

votes

Apple recommends doing so on an actual device and has a guide on how to do this using QuickTime and iMovie on iOS and OS X: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/app-previews/imovie/Creating-App-Previews-with-iMovie.pdf

Summary:

Capture Screen Recordings with QuickTime Player

Connect your iOS device to your Mac using a Lightning cable.
Open QuickTime Player.
Choose File > New Movie Recording.
In the window that appears, select your iOS device as the Camera and Microphone input source.

Create an App Preview with iMovie

Import Screen Recordings

Next, you import the screen recording files that you captured with QuickTime Player into iMovie. In iMovie:

Choose File > Import Media.
In the window that appears, select the screen recording files.

Create an App Preview Project

To start a new app preview project, choose File > New App Preview. A timeline appears where you can add and arrange clips to create your preview.

votes

You can record a portion of the screen with built-in screenshot utility:

Press Shift-Command-5 to show a control panel.
Select .
Select a portion of the screen you want to record. That would be the iPhone simulator.
Click to stop recording.
A thumbnail will appear at the bottom right corner of the screen. You can edit it before saving.

If you want to visualize mouse clicks, after step 1 select Options control and enable Show Mouse Clicks.

votes

I'm actually surprised no one provided my answer. This is what you do (this will work if you have at least 1 eligible device):

Record, edit and finish the App Preview with the device you have.
Export as a file.
Go to your Simulators and print screen 1 shot on each of the different sizes of iPhones.
Create a new App Preview in iMovie.
Insert the screenshot of the desired size FIRST, then add the file of the App Preview you've already made.
Export using Share -> App Preview
Repeat steps 4 to 6 for new sizes.

You should be able to get your App Preview in the desired resolution.

votes

You should use QuickTime in Yosemite to connect and record the screen of your iOS devices.

iPhone Portrait

When you have finished the recording, you can use iMovie to edit the video. When you're working on an iPhone Portrait App Preview, the resolution must be 1080x1920 but iMovie can only export in 16:9 (1920x1080).

One solution would be to import the recorded video with the resolution 1080x1920 and rotate it 90 degrees. Then export the movie at 1920x1080 and rotate the exported video back 90 degrees using ffmpeg and the following command

ffmpeg -i Landscape.mp4 -vf "transpose=1" Portrait.mp4

iPad

The iPad is a little bit trickier because it requires a resolution of 1200x900 (4:3) but iMovie only exports in 16:9.

Here is what I've done.

Record the movie on iPad Air in Landscape (1200x900, 4:3)
Import into iMovie and export as 1920x1080, 16:9 (iPadLandscape16_9-1920x1080.mp4)

Remove left and right black bars to a video with 1440x1080. The width of one bar is 240

 ffmpeg -i iPadLandscape16_9-1920x1080.mp4 -filter:v "crop=1440:1080:240:0" -c:a copy iPadLandscape4_3-1440x1080.mp4

Scale down movie to 1220x900

 ffmpeg -i iPadLandscape4_3-1440x1080.mp4 -filter:v scale=1200:-1 -c:a copy iPadLandscape4_3-1200x900.mp4

Taken from my answer on the Apple Developer Forum

votes

Taking a Screenshot or Recording a Video Using the Command Line

You can take a screenshot or record a video of the simulator window using the xcrun command-line utility.
Launch your app in Simulator.
Launch Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities), and enter the appropriate command:
To take a screenshot, use the screenshot operation:
xcrun simctl io booted screenshot
You can specify an optional filename at the end of the command.
To record a video, use the recordVideo operation:
xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo <filename>.<extension>
To stop recording, press Control-C in Terminal.

Note: You must specify a filename for recordVideo.
The default location for the created file is the current directory.

For more information on simctl, run this command in Terminal:
xcrun simctl help
For more information on the io subcommand of simctl, run this command:
xcrun simctl io help

From Apple Documentation.

votes

The Apple's Simulator User Guide states in Taking a Screenshot or Recording a Video Using the Command Line paragraph:

You can take a screenshot or record a video of the simulator window using the xcrun command-line utility.

To record a video, use the recordVideo operation in your Terminal:

xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo <filename>.<extension>

Note that the file will be created in the current directory of your Terminal.

If you want to save the video file in your Desktop folder, use the following command:

xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo ~/Desktop/<filename>.<extension>

To stop recording, press Control-C in Terminal.

votes

You can do this for free with the following tools. You will need at least one real device (I used an iPhone 5).

Capture the video with the simple, but excellent appshow (note this is a very barebones tool, but it's very easy to learn). This will export at the native device resolution (640x1136).

Resize with ffmpeg. Due to rounding, you can go directly between the resolutions, but you have to oversize and then crop.

ffmpeg -i video.mov -filter:v scale=1084:1924 -c:a copy video_1084.mov
ffmpeg -i video_1084.mov -filter:v "crop=1080:1920:0:0" -c:a copy video_1080.mov

For iPad, you can crop and then add a letterbox. However, cropping like this usually won't yield a video that looks exactly like your app does on the iPad. YMMV.

ffmpeg -i video.mov -filter:v "crop=640:960:0:0" -c:a copy video_640_960.mo
ffmpeg -i video_640_960.mov -filter:v "pad=768:1024:64:32" -c:a copy video_768_1024.mov
ffmpeg -i video_768_1024.mov -filter:v scale=900:1200 -c:a copy video_900_1200.mov

votes

This is the way I found easiest and you only need one iPhone and iPad:

Record device screen with QuickTime Player:

Connect your device.
Open QuickTime Player.
Choose File > New Movie Recording (CMD + alt + N)
In the window that appears, select your iOS device as the camera with maximum resolution.
Save video file (CMD + S)

Open iMovie

Select File -> New App Preview
Drag an IMAGE from your app with the biggest resolution ex. a 1920 x 1080 screenshot to the project. (This makes the video 1920 x 1080 even if you recorded with an iPhone 5)
Drag the movie you recorded to the project.
Save by choosing File -> Share -> App Preview

Now do this with all of your devices or:

Download Handbrake: https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php

And resize the high res video:

Drag your high res video to Handbrake
Select the "Picture Settings" icon
Resize to the correct size - close and press "Start" icon - gets saved to the desktop

votes

From Xcode 9 and on you can take screenshot or record Video using simctl binary that you can find it here:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/simctl

You can use it with xcrun to command the simulator in the command line.

For taking screenshot run this in command line:
```
xcrun simctl io booted screenshot
```

For recording video on the simulator using command line:

xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo fileName.videoType(e.g mp4/mov)

Note: You can use this command in any directory of your choice. The file will be saved in that directory.

votes

As of today in 2019, Apple has made life much easier for low budget or one-man project developers like me. You can just use the terminal command from one of the above posts to record videos from the wanted device simulator. And then use iMovie's New App Preview feature.

xcrun /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/simctl io booted recordVideo pro3new.mov

iMovie -> File -> New App Preview

votes

Here is a solution that works and doesn't cost $300 (FinalCut Pro), but it does require ScreenFlow (ScreenFlow app in AppStore) ($100):

Hookup your device to a Mac running Yosemite
Launch Quicktime and select File/Newi Movie Recording
Launch ScreenFlow and capture your video
Edit your video inside ScreenFlow (add text, music, etc)
Crop the video so that it only contains the device screen
Export the video with the size required by Apple (e.g., 1334x750)

votes

The best tool I have found is Appshow. Visit http://www.techsmith.com/techsmith-appshow.html (I do not work for them)

votes

A tip for users who like to use ZSH functions. You can simplify things a little by adding a function that does the same thing as @Tikhonov Alexander's answer.

Start out by typing:

edit ~/.zshrc

into your terminal.

Then add this function someplace in the file.

function recsim() {
    echo -n "Use CTRL+C to stop recording";
    xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo --codec=h264 --mask=black "$1.mp4";
}

To use, type something like:

recsim appPreview

into your terminal window. Note: Terminal must be restarted after adding the function before it will work.

This function is adapted from Antoine Van Der Lee's blog post on how to do this in bash, which can be found here.

votes

For Apple TV Simulator (tvOS, AppleTV) you should add --display=external parameter. I use this to save to desktop:

xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo --display=external --codec=h264 --force ~/Desktop/SimulatorVideo.mov

--force to rewrite if file exist
--codec to higher framerate

votes

You can use the QuickTime screen recording and the iOS Simulators to do your video recordings. The tricky thing here is to get the correct size so that iMovie can detect the output resolution when you go to export the AppPreview. I haven't found a way to select the output res in iMovie so if must detected by the format of the media you are using. It may take you several tries but it's doable. It's one of those: do I have $300 for FinalCut Pro or do I have an hour or so of my time? You only need three recordings as mentioned above. I could actually do two of them on devices because I have them but I don't have an iPhone 6 (yet ... :) ). I also like the simulators because you can use something like SimFinger to simulate gestures and pressing of buttons.

Good luck!

votes

I was facing the same problem. It has a very simple solution that worked for me. Just follow these steps:

1.Make a preview video in iMovie.

2.Export video using share file option. Choose 1920x1080 as it can be used for 5S, and 6 plus.

3.Download Appshow for Mac by techsmith (https://www.techsmith.com/techsmith-appshow.html.) It is specially made for making app preview videos. But i don't recommend it for making videos but rather just for exporting.

4.Choose a new App Preview video and customise it by choosing fewer frames which you can later delete.

5.Import your iMovie video into this template. On the top right corner you can choose any resolution you want, appshow has all the resolutions required for app preview.

6.Finally, just choose the device and export the video in your selected resolution.

votes

In my MBP's Settings > Displays > Display, I see a setting for 'Resolution: Default for Display / Scaled'. I set it to 'More space', then try the various simulators, all of which seem to fit on the enlarged screen at 100%. I suspect that wouldn't work with your FullHD screen though...

An alternative might be to try to install some sort of VNC server solution on the simulator, like https://github.com/wingify/vnc, and record that with a VNC recorder - I believe there's a Python VNC recorder out there.

votes

I've created RocketSim for this reason. It comes with a UI to start the recording and converts the recording into the right format requirements for App Previews.

You can simply drag the recording into App Store Connect and it simply works. An example of this can be found here.

votes

Unfortunately, the iOS Simulator app does not support saving videos. The easiest thing to do is use Quicktime Player to make a screen recording. Of course, you'll see the mouse interacting with it which is not what you want, but I don't have a better option for you at this time.

votes

You can combine QuickTime Player + iMovie(Free)

At first choose your desired simulator from xcode and record screen using QuickTime Player. After that use iMovie for making App Preview and finally upload the video with Safari browser.It's simple... :)

votes

With Xcode 12 just press cmd + R in the simulator to record the screen. cmd + S to take a screenshot.