Adding images or videos to iPhone Simulator

Question

I am trying to use UIImagePickerController with UIImagePickerControllerSourceTypePhotoLibrary, but it says, "No photos". Where does the simulator get the images from? Where should I copy the images so that they are displayed in the simulator?

Answer 1

The simplest way to get images, videos, etc onto the simulator is to drag and drop them from your computer onto the simulator. This will cause the Simulator to open the Photos app and start populating the library.

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If you want a scriptable method, read on.

Note - while this is valid, and works, I think Koen's solution below is now a better one, since it does not require rebooting the simulator.

Identify your simulator by going to xCode->Devices, selecting your simulator, and checking the Identifier value. Or you can ensure the simulator is running and run the following to get the device ID xcrun simctl list | grep Booted

Go to

~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/[Simulator Identifier]/data/Media/DCIM/100APPLE

and add IMG_nnnn.THM and IMG_nnnn.JPG. You will then need to reset your simulator (Hardware->Reboot) to allow it to notice the new changes. It doesn't matter if they are not JPEGs - they can both be PNGs, but it appears that both of them must be present for it to work. You may need to create DCIM if it doesn't already exist, and in that case you should start nnnn from 0001. The JPG files are the fullsize version, while the THM files are the thumbnail, and are 75x75 pixels in size. I wrote a script to do this, but there's a better documented one over here(-link no longer work).

You can also add photos from safari in the simulator, by Tapping and Holding on the image. If you drag an image (or any other file, like a PDF) to the simulator, it will immediately open Safari and display the image, so this is quite an easy way of getting images to it.

Answer 2

Explain step by step of Airsource Ltd's answer for adding image to simulator:

1. Drag it to simulator, then Safari opens (or browse to the Image in the internet using Safari)
2. Hold your click on the image
3. When the pop-up appears, choose Save Image and enjoy ;)

Update: for iOS Simulator 4.2, do these steps twice to get it work. Thanks kevboh!

Update: This also works for iOS Simulator 6.1

Answer 3

3 Simple Steps

1. Drag & Drop image onto simulator
   - this will open a browser with your image
2. Click & hold image
   - this will open options
3. save image
   - this will copy image onto simulator

Watch YouTube Video ( add images to iphone simulator)

Answer 4

With iOS 8.0, we added the ability to just drag and drop images into the iOS Simulator. You can drag a bunch of images into the window, and they should be imported into the photo reel for that simulated device. You can also do this with the simctl command line tool. 'xcrun simctl addphoto '

Answer 5

Since Xcode 6 you can use the command line tool xcrun simctl.

Usage is very simple; to add a photo to the currently running simulator you use the booted placeholder.

xcrun simctl addmedia booted ./MyFile.jpg

To add it to any other simulator, you use its device id, which can be found by running xcrun simctl list.

xcrun simctl addmedia E201E636-CE6C-11E5-AB30-625662870761 ./MyFile.jpg

Answer 6

Its simple. Just follow these steps :

1. Drag and drop image onto Simulator
2. Now image opens into Safari browser (file://.../ImageName). Tap-and-hold on the Image.

3. This displays actionSheet with Save, Cancel option (Also copy in case of iOS 7 simulator).

   

4. Save the image. The image gets added into Library.

   

Answer 7

I just stumbled upon how to bulk upload images on the iOS Simulator. (I've only confirmed it on 6.1.)

1. Backup the folder:

   ~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/6.1/Media
   

2. Copy all your images into the folder:

   ~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/6.1/Media/DCIM/100APPLE
   

3. Move or delete the folder:

   ~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/6.1/Media/PhotoData
   

4. Restart iOS Simulator

5. Open the Photos app

The simulator will restore all the images from the 100APPLE folder!

Answer 8

For iOS 7 I did the following:

copy photos to these two folders:

~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/6.1/Media/DCIM/100APPLE
~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/7.0/Media/DCIM/100APPLE

delete these 4 files only (to avoid duplicates on relaunch):

~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/6.1/Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite-shm
~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/6.1/Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite-wal
~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/7.0/Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite-shm
~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/7.0/Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite-wal

Answer 9

Just drag images to the iPhone simulator.

Answer 10

This is MUCH easier with the new iOS Simulator that comes with Xcode 6+ (iOS Simulator 8.1 and above.) Now all you have to do is drag one or more photos onto the iOS Simulator window, and instead of opening Safari, the Photos app opens, and instantly adds all dragged-in photos to the device.

Answer 11

Method 1 (Easiest Way): If you have your image on Mac

You can drag an image from the Finder on your Mac to Simulator, and it is saved to the Saved Photos album.

Method 2: If its on any URL

To save an image from a webpage to the Photos app

1. Place the pointer on the image you want to save, and hold down the mouse button or trackpad.
2. When the menu appears, click Save Image to save the image to the Photos app in an iOS simulator.
3. The image is saved to the Saved Photos album in the Photos app.

Incase someone looking for Apple Documentation regarding Copying and Pasting in Simulator.

Answer 12

None of the answers had the exact solution that I needed.

The steps I've found for myself working on iOS 5.0 and above simulator are as follows:

1. Close the simulator if it is running xcode project.

2. Run simulator from the dock by clicking on it.

3. Drag & drop the image into simulator.

4. Tap and hold the image (opened in safari) and select the save option.

You are done.

Answer 13

For iOS 5.1 this is further changed to new path

~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/5.1/Media/DCIM/100APPLE

Answer 14

As of iOS 8, you can just drag all your photos onto the simulator window and they'll save to camera roll automatically. You can do as many at a time as you want.

Answer 15

If you need to import more than just one or two photos then take a look at this article that I wrote. It describes an easy way to perform a bulk import of photos and works for iOS 4.x.

Answer 16

For iOS 8, If there is no need to retain photo capture date and location, just drop photo files to the simulator.

To retain photo meta data, do the following:

1. Copy photo files to: /Users/{USER}/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/{UDID}/data/Media/DCIM/100Apple
2. Remove (or rename) folder: /Users/{USER}/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/{UDID}/data/Media/photoData
3. Relaunch Simulator

Note: You need to replace {USER} with your user name and {UDID} with the UDID of the simulator. To find UDID for your simulator, from Terminal, run 'xcrun simctl list'.

Answer 17

If you can not drag and drop your files because you experience the error:

One or more media items failed to import: : The operation couldn’t be completed. (PHPhotosErrorDomain error -1.)

Move your files into the Documents folder and then drag them into the simulator. This will trigger the simulator to ask for permissions to access your files. Having them inside the Downloads folder, will not.

Answer 18

quit the simulator.

Run simulator from the dock by clicking on it.

Drag & drop the image into simulator which you want to add.

it will open image in safari .

tap and hold the image and click the save option.

then open gallery and you will see the image which u had saved recently.

Answer 19

Adding an image to the Iphone Simulation running IOS 8.0 is even easier.

• Drag your image to the simulator
• IOS opens the Photo app and your image is now part of your collection.

No need to deal with Safari anymore

Answer 20

For iOS 4.2 I had to go and create the 100APPLE folder and restart the simulator, then it worked.

Answer 21

try this app I've made. download the code and run it in simulator https://github.com/cristianbica/CBSimulatorSeed

Answer 22

For iOS 8.0,the answer is out of date.I found the media resource in the following path: ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/[DeviceID]/data/Media/DCIM/100APPLE

Answer 23

The simplest solution is to simply sign into iCloud on the simulator then use that to transfer any files in the drive, including photos.

Answer 24

In OS X Catalina with Xcode 11 you have to do this differently.

First you MUST start the simulator. If you want to copy, say a photo to MULTIPLE simulated devices. Start all of them up. Then Right Click on a SINGLE (Multiple images will fail. ONLY does a single file.).

Share -> Simulator

A 'share sheet will pop-up. You must choose an active simulator in the combo box and hit send.

It will send one to many but NOT many to many of selected photos.

I hope this helps folks. Drag and drop was supported in the last versions of Xcode and OS X but not with OS X Catalina and Xcode 11.

While this IS in the directions it currently IS NOT working.

What DID work for me was to first import my images into iPhoto on OS X and then DRAG/DROP them from my OS X iPhoto and drop into the simulator. It would appear the drag/drop for photos into the simulator is CURRENTLY only working from OS X iPhoto. :-(

Answer 25

Just Drag and Drop image into iphone simulator. browser will open to show your image. press on image until you not receive options to save Image. then Save image. thats it :). you will see your image in to Photo app in your simulator....

Answer 26

I wrote a bash script to do this. Check the link[1]

#!/bin/bash

# Imports pictures into all iOS simulators.

path_to_pic="src/ios/pictures/"

mkdir -p /Users/$(whoami)/Library/Application\ Support/iPhone\ Simulator/{5.0,5.1,6.0,6.1}/Media/DCIM/100APPLE/
find ~/Library/Application\ Support/iPhone\ Simulator/ -type d -name '100APPLE' -exec cp /Users/$(whoami)/$path_to_pic/* {} \;

[1] : https://gist.github.com/firesofmay/5194901

Answer 27

Just to tell you : KONG's solution also works on iOS 7 beta.

His solution was:

Drag the image to simulator, then Safari opens (or browse to the Image in the internet using Safari) Hold your click on the image When the pop-up appears, choose Save Image and enjoy ;)

Answer 28

I just needed some random images for testing, so this is how I did it.

I have the simplest solution in the world. Just open Safari in the simulator, go to Google images (or your own web or Dropbox URL), view an image, hold down the mouse button for 2 seconds, and you'll see "Save Image" - it will save right into the Photos library. Rinse and repeat.

Answer 29

an even easier way, is : open safari on simulator > tap www.google.com search for random photos "nature" open each image, press on it and save it.

Answer 30

With the drag and drop feature you will lose all the metadata of the photos.

I've created a project that make it really easy to import assets to the simulator: MBAssetsImporter.

It enables you to import both videos and photos while preserving all the original metadata of the files.