26.2 Simulator disk images mounted

[ignatius345]

I just opened Disk Utility and see this assortment of disk images in the sidebar. Why are these iOS, AppleTVOS and WatchOS simulators mounted? Can I just eject them?

 

[ignatius345]

Turns out they’re “in use” and can’t be ejected 🤔

 

[Slartibart]

not even after a restart? which exact version of Tahoe?

 

[ignatius345]

not even after a restart? which exact version of Tahoe?

26.4 -- and yeah, persists after restart :/

I think it may be related to Xcode, which I installed?

 

[PotentPeas]

This is normal if you have Xcode installed with these device SDKs. You'll see the mounted images in Disk Utility, but they shouldn't be showing on your desktop or Finder sidebar.

One thing to note is you do have to do a bit of manual cleanup. Future versions of Xcode will come with newer device SDKs (iOS 26.4, 26.5, ...) which it will download when you launch it, but it won't clean up the "old" ones, you have to do that manually from Xcode settings.

 

[ignatius345]

This is normal if you have Xcode installed with these device SDKs. You'll see the mounted images in Disk Utility, but they shouldn't be showing on your desktop or Finder sidebar.

One thing to note is you do have to do a bit of manual cleanup. Future versions of Xcode will come with newer device SDKs (iOS 26.4, 26.5, ...) which it will download when you launch it, but it won't clean up the "old" ones, you have to do that manually from Xcode settings.

Thanks for the confirmation.

I just removed that whole directory from Time Machine, as it was definitely gumming things up (and likely would continue to do so with new OS updates adding more stuff to the directory). I'll make a reminder to go back and clean it out later.

 

[MacCheetah3]

@ignatius345

One thing to note is you do have to do a bit of manual cleanup. Future versions of Xcode will come with newer device SDKs (iOS 26.4, 26.5, ...) which it will download when you launch it, but it won't clean up the "old" ones, you have to do that manually from Xcode settings.

Downloading and installing additional Xcode components | Apple Developer Documentation

Add more simulated devices, optional features, and support for additional platforms.

developer.apple.com

Look within Other Installed Platforms.

For example, after updating to Xcode 26.4, you’ll (probably) see iOS 26.2 Simulator as well as possibly others, especially if you’ve never gone in to clean it up, manage.
NOTE: Click the info (i) button next to the simulator to reveal the delete option.

There are sensible reasons to have older versions for testing, such as iOS 18.6 Simulator to support (i.e., verify compatibility) for users who are holdouts against OS 26. However, keeping older point releases, such as iOS simulators for OS 26.0, 26.1, 26.2 in addition to 26.4, is typically, fairly useless.

 

[ignatius345]

@ignatius345

Downloading and installing additional Xcode components | Apple Developer Documentation

Add more simulated devices, optional features, and support for additional platforms.

developer.apple.com

Specifically, look within Other Installed Platforms.

For example, after updated to Xcode 26.4, you’ll (probably) see iOS 26.2 Simulator as well as possibly others, especially if you’ve never gone in to clean it up, manage.
NOTE: Click the info (i) button next to the simulator to reveal the delete option.

There are sensible reasons to have older versions for testing, such as having an iOS 18.6 Simulator to support (i.e., verify compatibility) for users who are holdouts against OS 26. However, having older point releases, such as having iOS simulators for OS 26, 26.1, 26.2 in addition to 26.4, is typically, fairly pointless.

Thank you! I really downloaded Xcode to mess around with it and don’t actually know what I’m doing.