Xcode 4: Finding the Application You Built

April 6th, 2011

Filed under: Xcode | 12 comments

Previous versions of Xcode created a build folder inside your project folder and placed your application there. Xcode 4 stores build products in the following location:

/Users/Username/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData

When you build the project, Xcode creates a folder for your project in the derived data folder and places the files it creates in that folder. If you want your derived data in a different location, open Xcode’s Location Preferences. Choosing File > Project Settings lets you change the derived data location for a single project.

Update

You can also open the folder where your application resides using the Xcode project window. Click the disclosure triangle next to the Products folder in the project navigator. Select the application, right-click, and choose Show in Finder.

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12 thoughts on “Xcode 4: Finding the Application You Built

  1. Roger deBry says:

    Thank you. I found the executable files. This was certainly not obvious in any documentation that I have read on xcode 4.

  2. Graham says:

    I tried using the “Show in Finder” option, but it was disabled.

    • Mark Szymczyk says:

      Graham,

      Is the name of the product in red text in the project navigator? If so, the Show in Finder menu item is going to be disabled because Xcode can’t find the path to the application. I have this problem with one project, and I haven’t been able to fix it yet. If I find a solution, I’ll post it here. If you find a solution before me, please post it here.

  3. Vladimir says:

    Thanks a lot,lost 30 min there 😉

  4. SASHA says:

    Thanks a lot that helped I found everything I needed

  5. ARaybo says:

    I found my apps buried several subdirectories below the answer given here. As in so many other cases, the command line is your best resource – start a terminal and use find:

    find /Users/USERNAME/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData -name APPNAME.app

    If that doesn’t work, search from your home directory or even the root.

  6. Brian Pickrell says:

    I just tried this out. You have to choose “Archive” to get it to build a release executable, apparently.

    If you go to the main menu and select “Product->Archive…” and then the “Distribute” button, XCode puts an executable under your project folder:
    //usr/local/bin/

    The DerivedData directory in the insanely deep directory tree mentioned above (it’s actually much deeper) seems to be just a temporary holding area.

  7. Brian Pickrell says:

    Correction to the above–looks like I got autocorrected: the actual directory path is something like

    /Users/brian/FaceDetect/FaceDetect 2-7-13 4.25 PM/usr/local/bin/FaceDetect

    where FaceDetect is the name of my project (both executable and project directory; a subdirectory had a time stamp added to its name).

  8. Lee Harrison says:

    I found the above instructions confusing, and perhaps wrong for xCode 5.0.2 under 10.8.5 … “Show in Finder” doesn’t work.

    What works is from the ____.xcodeproj window click the triangle to expose the contents of Products, and then click on the content. On the right-hand side of the window the “identity and type” pane will give you the full path.

    • Mark Szymczyk says:

      Lee,

      Show in Finder works for me on Xcode 5.0.2 on Mavericks. Thanks for providing an alternative method for people who have problems with Show in Finder.

  9. Devin Whitten says:

    There is absolutely no reason for finding the .exe to be this involved. Xcode is unnecessarily wasting time, and I wish very dearly that there were more options for mac compatible IDE’s.

  10. edgar says:

    This worked!! Was having an issue sending keyboard signal in x-code, so wanted to try running from terminal but could not find exe until reading this post. THANK YOU!!

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