Skip to content

Capabilities

General

Capability              Description
platformName Could be set to ios. Appium itself is not strict about this capability value if automationName is provided, so feel free to assign it to any supported platform name if this is needed, for example, to make Selenium Grid working.
appium:automationName Must always be set to xcuitest. Values of automationName are compared case-insensitively.
appium:deviceName The name of the device under test. Consider setting udid for real devices and use this one for Simulator selection instead
appium:platformVersion The platform version of an emulator or a real device. This capability is used for device autodetection if udid is not provided
appium:udid UDID of the device to be tested. Could be retrieved from Xcode->Window->Devices and Simulators window. Always set this capability if you run parallel tests or use a real device to run your tests.
appium:noReset Prevents the device to be reset before the session startup if set to true. This means that the application under test is not going to be terminated neither its data cleaned. false by default
appium:fullReset Being set to true always enforces the application under test to be fully uninstalled before starting a new session. false by default
appium:printPageSourceOnFindFailure Enforces the server to dump the actual XML page source into the log if any error happens. false by default.
browserName The name of the browser to run the test on. If this capability is provided then the driver will try to start the test in Web context mode (Native mode is applied by default). Read Automating hybrid apps for more details. Usually equals to safari.
appium:includeDeviceCapsToSessionInfo Whether to include screen information as the result of Get Session Capabilities. It includes pixelRatio, statBarHeight and viewportRect, but it causes an extra API call to WDA which may increase the response time like this issue. Defaults to true.
appium:resetLocationService Whether reset the location service in the session deletion on real device. Defaults to false.
appium:customSSLCert

App

Capability Description
appium:bundleId Bundle identifier of the app under test, for example com.mycompany.myapp. The capability value is calculated automatically if app is provided. If neither app or bundleId capability is provided then XCUITest driver starts from the Home screen.
appium:app Full path to the application to be tested (the app must be located on the same machine where the server is running). .ipa and .app application extensions are supported. Zipped .app bundles are supported as well. Could also be an URL to a remote location. If neither of the app or bundleId capabilities are provided then the driver starts from the Home screen and expects the test to know what to do next. Do not provide both app and browserName capabilities at once.
appium:localizableStringsDir Where to look for localizable strings in the application bundle. Defaults to en.lproj
appium:otherApps App or list of apps (as a JSON array) to install prior to running tests. Note that it will not work with iOS real devices. Fore example: ["http://appium.github.io/appium/assets/TestApp9.4.app.zip", "/path/to/app-b.app"]
appium:language Language to set for iOS app, for example fr. Please read Language IDs to get more details about available values for this capability. If a test is executed on a Simulator then UI language is changed as well. You can also change Simulator language in runtime using mobile: configureLocalization extension.
appium:locale Locale to set for iOS app, for example fr_CA. Please read Locale IDs to get more details about available values for this capability. If a test is executed on a Simulator then UI locale is changed as well. You can also change Simulator locale in runtime using mobile: configureLocalization extension.
appium:calendarFormat Calendar format to set for iOS Simulator, for example gregorian or persian. Can only be set in conjunction with appium:locale.
appium:appPushTimeout The timeout for application upload in milliseconds. Works for real devices only. The default value is 30000ms
appium:appInstallStrategy Select application installation strategy for real devices. The following strategies are supported: serial (default) - pushes app files to the device in a sequential order; this is the least performant strategy, although the most reliable; parallel - pushes app files simultaneously; this is usually the the most performant strategy, but sometimes could not be very stable; ios-deploy - tells the driver to use a third-party tool ios-deploy to install the app; obviously the tool must be installed separately first and must be present in PATH before it could be used.

WebDriverAgent

Capability Description Values
appium:xcodeOrgId Apple developer team identifier string. Must be used in conjunction with xcodeSigningId to take effect. e.g., JWL241K123
appium:xcodeSigningId String representing a signing certificate. Must be used in conjunction with xcodeOrgId. This is usually just iPhone Developer, so the default (if not included) is iPhone Developer e.g., iPhone Developer
appium:xcodeConfigFile Full path to an optional Xcode configuration file that specifies the code signing identity and team for running the WebDriverAgent on the real device. e.g., /path/to/myconfig.xcconfig
appium:updatedWDABundleId Bundle id to update WDA to before building and launching on real devices. This bundle id must be associated with a valid provisioning profile. e.g., io.appium.WebDriverAgentRunner
appium:keychainPath Full path to the private development key exported from the system keychain. Used in conjunction with keychainPassword when testing on real devices. e.g., /path/to/MyPrivateKey.p12
appium:keychainPassword Password for unlocking keychain specified in keychainPath. e.g., super awesome password
appium:derivedDataPath Use along with usePrebuiltWDA capability and choose where to search for the existing WDA app. If the capability is not set then Xcode will store the derived data in the default root taken from preferences.
appium:webDriverAgentUrl If provided, Appium will connect to an existing WebDriverAgent instance at this URL instead of starting a new one. e.g., http://localhost:8100
appium:useNewWDA If true, forces uninstall of any existing WebDriverAgent app on device. Set it to true if you want to apply different startup options for WebDriverAgent for each session. Although, it is only guaranteed to work stable on Simulator. Real devices require WebDriverAgent client to run for as long as possible without reinstall/restart to avoid issues like https://github.com/facebook/WebDriverAgent/issues/507. The false value (the default behaviour since driver version 2.35.0) will try to detect currently running WDA listener executed by previous testing session(s) and reuse it if possible, which is highly recommended for real device testing and to speed up suites of multiple tests in general. A new WDA session will be triggered at the default URL (http://localhost:8100) if WDA is not listening and webDriverAgentUrl capability is not set. The negative/unset value of useNewWDA capability has no effect prior to xcuitest driver version 2.35.0. e.g., true
appium:wdaLaunchTimeout Time, in ms, to wait for WebDriverAgent to be pingable. Defaults to 60000ms. e.g., 30000
appium:wdaConnectionTimeout Timeout, in ms, for waiting for a response from WebDriverAgent. Defaults to 240000ms. e.g., 1000
appium:wdaStartupRetries Number of times to try to build and launch WebDriverAgent onto the device. Defaults to 2. e.g., 4
appium:wdaStartupRetryInterval Time, in ms, to wait between tries to build and launch WebDriverAgent. Defaults to 10000ms. e.g., 20000
appium:wdaLocalPort This value if specified, will be used to forward traffic from Mac host to real ios devices over USB. Default value is same as port number used by WDA on device. e.g., 8100
appium:wdaBaseUrl This value if specified, will be used as a prefix to build a custom WebDriverAgent url. It is different from webDriverAgentUrl, because if the latter is set then it expects WebDriverAgent to be already listening and skips the building phase. Defaults to http://localhost e.g., http://192.168.1.100
appium:showXcodeLog Whether to display the output of the Xcode command used to run the tests. If this is true, there will be lots of extra logging at startup. Defaults to false e.g., true
appium:iosInstallPause Time in milliseconds to pause between installing the application and starting WebDriverAgent on the device. Used particularly for larger applications. Defaults to 0 e.g., 8000
appium:usePrebuiltWDA Skips the build phase of running the WDA app. Building is then the responsibility of the user. Only works for Xcode 8+. Defaults to false. e.g., true
appium:shouldUseSingletonTestManager Use default proxy for test management within WebDriverAgent. Setting this to false sometimes helps with socket hangup problems. Defaults to true. e.g., false
appium:waitForIdleTimeout The amount of time in float seconds to wait until the application under test is idling. XCTest requires the app's main thread to be idling in order to execute any action on it, so WDA might not even start/freeze if the app under test is constantly hogging the main thread. The default value is 10 (seconds). Setting it to zero disables idling checks completely (not recommended) and has the same effect as setting waitForQuiescence to false. Available since Appium 1.20.0.
appium:useXctestrunFile Use Xctestrun file to launch WDA. It will search for such file in bootstrapPath. Expected name of file is WebDriverAgentRunner_iphoneos<sdkVersion>-arm64.xctestrun for real device and WebDriverAgentRunner_iphonesimulator<sdkVersion>-x86_64.xctestrun for simulator. One can do build-for-testing for WebDriverAgent project for simulator and real device and then you will see Product Folder like this and you need to copy content of this folder at bootstrapPath location. Since this capability expects that you have already built WDA project, it neither checks whether you have necessary dependencies to build WDA nor will it try to build project. Defaults to false. Tips: Xcodebuild builds for the target platform version. We'd recommend you to build with minimal OS version which you'd like to run as the original WDA module. e.g. If you build WDA for 12.2, the module cannot run on iOS 11.4 because of loading some module error on simulator. A module built with 11.4 can work on iOS 12.2. (This is xcodebuild's expected behaviour.) e.g., true
appium:useSimpleBuildTest Build with build and run test with test in xcodebuild for all Xcode version if this is true, or build with build-for-testing and run tests with test-without-building for over Xcode 8 if this is false. Defaults to false. true or false
appium:wdaEventloopIdleDelay Delays the invocation of -[XCUIApplicationProcess setEventLoopHasIdled:] by the number of seconds specified with this capability. This can help quiescence apps that fail to do so for no obvious reason (and creating a session fails for that reason). This increases the time for session creation because -[XCUIApplicationProcess setEventLoopHasIdled:] is called multiple times. If you enable this capability start with at least 3 seconds and try increasing it, if creating the session still fails. Defaults to 0. e.g. 5
appium:processArguments Process arguments and environment which will be sent to the WebDriverAgent server in a new session request. Please use mobile:launchApp to launch an application with process arguments in the middle of a session. { args: ["a", "b", "c"] , env: { "a": "b", "c": "d" } } or '{"args": ["a", "b", "c"], "env": { "a": "b", "c": "d" }}'
appium:autoLaunch When set to false, prevents the application under test from being launched automatically as a part of the new session startup process. The launch become the responsibility of the user. Defaults to true. true or false
appium:allowProvisioningDeviceRegistration Allow xcodebuild to register your destination device on the developer portal if necessary. Requires a developer account to have been added in Xcode's Accounts preference pane. Defaults to false. true or false
appium:resultBundlePath Specify the path to the result bundle path as xcodebuild argument for WebDriverAgent build under a security flag (Please check Opt-in Features section below). WebDriverAgent process must start/stop every time to pick up changed value of this property. Specifying useNewWDA to true may help there. Please read man xcodebuild for more details. e.g. /path/to/resultbundle
appium:resultBundleVersion Specify the version of result bundle as xcodebuild argument for WebDriverAgent build. The default value depends on your Xcode version. Please read man xcodebuild for more details. e.g. /path/to/resultbundle
appium:maxTypingFrequency Maximum frequency of keystrokes for typing and clear. If your tests are failing because of typing errors, you may want to adjust this. Defaults to 60 keystrokes per minute. e.g., 30
appium:simpleIsVisibleCheck Use native methods for determining visibility of elements. In some cases this takes a long time. Setting this capability to false will cause the system to use the position and size of elements to make sure they are visible on the screen. This can, however, lead to false results in some situations. Defaults to false, except iOS 9.3, where it defaults to true. e.g., true, false
appium:waitForQuiescence It allows to turn on/off waiting for application quiescence in WebDriverAgent, while performing queries. The default value is true. You can avoid this kind of issues if you turn it off. Consider using waitForIdleTimeout capability instead for this purpose since Appium 1.20.0 e.g false
appium:mjpegServerPort The port number on which WDA broadcasts screenshots stream encoded into MJPEG format from the device under test. It might be necessary to change this value if the default port is busy because of other tests running in parallel. Default value: 9100 e.g. 12000
appium:screenshotQuality Changes the quality of phone display screenshots following xctest/xctimagequality Default value is 1. 0 is the highest and 2 is the lowest quality. You can also change it via settings command. 0 might cause OutOfMemory crash on high-resolution devices like iPad Pro. e.g. 0, 1, 2
appium:autoAcceptAlerts Accept all iOS alerts automatically if they pop up. This includes privacy access permission alerts (e.g., location, contacts, photos). Default is false. true or false
appium:autoDismissAlerts Dismiss all iOS alerts automatically if they pop up. This includes privacy access permission alerts (e.g., location, contacts, photos). Default is false. true or false
appium:disableAutomaticScreenshots Disable automatic screenshots taken by XCTest at every interaction. Default is up to WebDriverAgent's config to decide, which currently defaults to true. true or false
appium:shouldTerminateApp Specify if the app should be terminated on session end. This capability only has an effect if an application identifier has been passed to the test session (either explicitly, by setting bundleId, or implicitly, by providing app). Default is true unless noReset capability is set to true. true or false
appium:forceAppLaunch Specify if the app should be forcefully restarted if it is already running on session startup. This capability only has an effect if an application identifier has been passed to the test session (either explicitly, by setting bundleId, or implicitly, by providing app). Default is true unless noReset capability is set to true. true or false
appium:useNativeCachingStrategy Set this capability to false in order to use the custom elements caching strategy. This might help to avoid stale element exception on property change. By default the native XCTest cache resolution is used (true) for all native locators (e.g. all, but xpath). Check the corresponding WebDriverAgent pull request for more details. true or false

Simulator

Capability Description Values
appium:orientation Start a test session in a certain orientation. Note, that Simulator may ignore this capability if the simulated device itself does not support orientation change in its current state. For example, iPhones only allow orientation change to landscape if an app that declares landscape support in its manifest is running. Thus changing the orientation from portrait to something else being on home screen won't have any effect. LANDSCAPE or PORTRAIT
appium:scaleFactor Simulator scale factor. This is useful to have if the default resolution of simulated device is greater than the actual display resolution. So you can scale the simulator to see the whole device screen without scrolling. Acceptable values for simulators running Xcode SDK 8 and older are: '1.0', '0.75', '0.5', '0.33' and '0.25', where '1.0' means 100% scale. For simulators running Xcode SDK 9 and above the value could be any valid positive float number. The capability must be of a string type.
appium:connectHardwareKeyboard Set this option to true in order to enable hardware keyboard in Simulator. The preference works only when XCUITest driver launches a simulator instance with this value. It is set to false by default, because this helps to workaround some XCTest bugs. connectHardwareKeyboard: true makes forceSimulatorSoftwareKeyboardPresence: false if no explicit value is set for forceSimulatorSoftwareKeyboardPresence capability since Appium 1.22.0. true or false
appium:forceSimulatorSoftwareKeyboardPresence Set this option to true in order to turn software keyboard on and turn hardware keyboard off in Simulator since Appium 1.22.0. This option helps to avoid Keyboard is not present error. It is set to true by default. XCUITest driver respects preset simulator software/hardware keyboard preference when this value is false, so connectHardwareKeyboard: false and forceSimulatorSoftwareKeyboardPresence: false means for XCUITest driver to keep the current Simulator keyboard preferences. This option has priority over connectHardwareKeyboard. true or false
Deprecated appium:calendarAccessAuthorized This capability is obsolete. Please use appium:permissions one instead with the calendar key. true or false
appium:isHeadless Set this capability to true if automated tests are running on Simulator and the device display is not needed to be visible. This only has an effect since Xcode9 and only for simulators. All running instances of Simulator UI are going to be automatically terminated if headless test is started. false is the default value. e.g., true
appium:simulatorWindowCenter Allows to explicitly set the coordinates of Simulator window center for Xcode9+ SDK. This capability only has an effect if Simulator window has not been opened yet for the current session before it started. e.g. {-100.0,100.0} or {500,500}, spaces are not allowed
appium:simulatorStartupTimeout Allows to change the default timeout for Simulator startup. By default this value is set to 120000ms (2 minutes), although the startup could take longer on a weak hardware or if other concurrent processes use much system resources during the boot up procedure. e.g. 300000
appium:simulatorTracePointer Whether to highlight pointer moves in the Simulator window. The Simulator UI client must be shut down before the session startup in order for this capability to be applied properly. false by default. e.g. true
appium:shutdownOtherSimulators If this capability set to true and the current device under test is an iOS Simulator then Appium will try to shutdown all the other running Simulators before to start a new session. This might be useful while executing webview tests on different devices, since only one device can be debugged remotely at once due to an Apple bug. The capability only has an effect if --relaxed-security command line argument is provided to the server. Defaults to false. e.g. true
appium:enforceFreshSimulatorCreation Creates a new simulator in session creation and deletes it in session deletion. Defaults to false. true or false
appium:keepKeyChains Set the capability to true in order to preserve Simulator keychains folder after full reset. This feature has no effect on real devices. Defaults to false e.g. true
appium:keychainsExcludePatterns This capability accepts comma-separated path patterns, which are going to be excluded from keychains restore while full reset is being performed on Simulator. It might be useful if you want to exclude only particular keychain types from being restored, like the applications keychain. This feature has no effect on real devices. e.g. *keychain*.db* to exclude applications keychain from being restored
appium:reduceMotion It allows to turn on/off reduce motion accessibility preference. Setting reduceMotion on helps to reduce flakiness during tests. Only on simulators e.g true
appium:reduceTransparency It allows you to turn on/off reduce transparency accessibility preference. Setting reduceTransparency on helps to reduce screenshot image distortion during tests. Only on simulators e.g true
appium:permissions Allows to set permissions for the specified application bundle on Simulator only. The capability value is expected to be a valid JSON string with {"<bundleId1>": {"<serviceName1>": "<serviceStatus1>", ...}, ...} format. Since Xcode SDK 11.4 Apple provides native APIs to interact with application settings. Check the output of xcrun simctl privacy booted command to get the list of available permission names. Use yes, no and unset as values in order to grant, revoke or reset the corresponding permission. Below Xcode SDK 11.4 it is required that applesimutils package is installed and available in PATH. The list of available service names and statuses can be found at https://github.com/wix/AppleSimulatorUtils. e. g. {"com.apple.mobilecal": {"calendar": "YES"}}
appium:iosSimulatorLogsPredicate Set the --predicate flag in the ios simulator logs e.g.: 'process != "locationd" AND process != "DTServiceHub"' AND process != "mobileassetd"
appium:simulatorPasteboardAutomaticSync Handle the -PasteboardAutomaticSync flag when simulator process launches. It could improve launching simulator performance not to sync pasteboard with the system when this value is off. on forces the flag enabled. system does not provide the flag to the launching command. on, off, or system is available. They are case insensitive. Defaults to off e.g. system
appium:simulatorDevicesSetPath This capability allows to set an alternative path to the simulator devices set in case you have multiple sets deployed on your local system. Such feature could be useful if you, for example, would like to save disk space on the main system volume. e.g. /MyVolume/Devices
appium:webkitResponseTimeout (Real device only) Set the time, in ms, to wait for a response from WebKit in a Safari session. Defaults to 5000 e.g., 10000
appium:safariGlobalPreferences Allows changing of Mobile Safari's preferences at the session startup. Check the documentation on arguments of mobile: updateSafariPreferences extension to get more details on the value type requirements. { ShowTabBar: 0, WarnAboutFraudulentWebsites: 0 }

Web Context

Capability Description Values
appium:absoluteWebLocations This capability will direct the Get Element Location command, when used within webviews, to return coordinates which are relative to the origin of the page, rather than relative to the current scroll offset. This capability has no effect outside of webviews. Default false. e.g., true
appium:safariGarbageCollect Turns on/off Web Inspector garbage collection when executing scripts on Safari. Turning on may improve performance. Defaults to false. true or false
appium:includeSafariInWebviews Add Safari web contexts to the list of contexts available during a native/webview app test. This is useful if the test opens Safari and needs to be able to interact with it. Defaults to false. true or false
appium:safariLogAllCommunication Log all plists sent to and received from the Web Inspector, as plain text. For some operations this can be a lot of data, so it is recommended to be used only when necessary. Defaults to false. true or false
appium:safariLogAllCommunicationHexDump Log all communication sent to and received from the Web Inspector, as raw hex dump and printable characters. This logging is done before any data manipulation, and so can elucidate some communication issues. Like appium:safariLogAllCommunication, this can produce a lot of data in some cases, so it is recommended to be used only when necessary. Defaults to false. true or false
appium:safariSocketChunkSize The size, in bytes, of the data to be sent to the Web Inspector on iOS 11+ real devices. Some devices hang when sending large amounts of data to the Web Inspector, and breaking them into smaller parts can be helpful in those cases. Defaults to 16384 (also the maximum possible) e.g., 1000
appium:safariWebInspectorMaxFrameLength The maximum size in bytes of a single data frame for the Web Inspector. Too high values could introduce slowness and/or memory leaks. Too low values could introduce possible buffer overflow exceptions. Defaults to 20MB (20*1024*1024) e.g. 1024, 100*1024*1024
appium:additionalWebviewBundleIds Array (or JSON array) of possible bundle identifiers for webviews. This is sometimes necessary if the Web Inspector is found to be returning a modified bundle identifier for the app. Defaults to [] e.g., ['io.appium.modifiedId', 'ABCDEF']
appium:webviewConnectTimeout The time to wait, in ms, for the initial presence of webviews in MobileSafari or hybrid apps. Defaults to 0 e.g., '5000'
appium:safariIgnoreWebHostnames Provide a list of hostnames (comma-separated) that the Safari automation tools should ignore. This is to provide a workaround to prevent a webkit bug where the web context is unintentionally changed to a 3rd party website and the test gets stuck. The common culprits are search engines (yahoo, bing, google) and about:blank e.g. 'www.yahoo.com, www.bing.com, www.google.com, about:blank'
appium:nativeWebTap Enable native, non-javascript-based taps being in web context mode. Defaults to false. Warning: sometimes the preciseness of native taps could be broken, because there is no reliable way to map web element coordinates to native ones. true
appium:nativeWebTapStrict Enforce native taps to be done by XCUITest driver rather than WebDriverAgent. Only applicable if nativeWebTap is enabled. false by default false
appium:safariInitialUrl Initial safari url, default is a local welcome page. Setting it to an empty string will skip the initial navigation. e.g. https://www.github.com
appium:safariAllowPopups (Simulator only) Allow javascript to open new windows in Safari. Default keeps current sim setting. true or false
appium:safariIgnoreFraudWarning (Simulator only) Prevent Safari from showing a fraudulent website warning. Default keeps current sim setting. true or false
appium:safariOpenLinksInBackground (Simulator only) Whether Safari should allow links to open in new windows. Default keeps current sim setting. true or false
appium:webviewConnectRetries Number of times to send connection message to remote debugger, to get webview. Default: 8 e.g., 12
appium:webkitResponseTimeout (Real device only) Set the time, in ms, to wait for a response from WebKit in a Safari session. Defaults to 5000 e.g., 10000
appium:enableAsyncExecuteFromHttps Capability to allow simulators to execute asynchronous JavaScript on pages using HTTPS. Defaults to false true or false
appium:fullContextList Returns the detailed information on contexts for the get available context command. If this capability is enabled, then each item in the returned contexts list would additionally include WebView title, full URL and the bundle identifier. Defaults to false. true or false
appium:enablePerformanceLogging Enable Safari's performance logging (default false) true, false
appium:autoWebview Move directly into Webview context if available. Default false true, false

Other

Capability Description Values
appium:resetOnSessionStartOnly Whether to perform reset on test session finish (false) or not (true). Keeping this variable set to true and Simulator running (the default behaviour since version 1.6.4) may significantly shorten the duration of test session initialization. Either true or false. Defaults to true
appium:commandTimeouts Custom timeout(s) in milliseconds for WDA backend commands execution. This might be useful if WDA backend freezes unexpectedly or requires too much time to fail and blocks automated test execution. The value is expected to be of type string and can either contain max milliseconds to wait for each WDA command to be executed before terminating the session forcefully or a valid JSON string, where keys are internal Appium command names (you can find these in logs, look for "Executing command 'command_name'" records) and values are timeouts in milliseconds. You can also set the 'default' key to assign the timeout for all other commands not explicitly enumerated as JSON keys. '120000', '{"findElement": 40000, "findElements": 40000, "setValue": 20000, "default": 120000}'
appium:useJSONSource Get JSON source from WDA and transform it to XML on the Appium server side. Defaults to false. e.g., true
appium:skipLogCapture Skips to start capturing logs such as crash, system, safari console and safari network. It might improve performance such as network. Log related commands will not work. Defaults to false. true or false
appium:launchWithIDB Launch WebDriverAgentRunner with idb instead of xcodebuild. This could save a significant amout of time by skiping the xcodebuild process, although the idb might not be very reliable, especially with fresh Xcode SDKs. Check the idb repository for more details on possible compatibility issues. Defaults to false true or false
appium:showIOSLog Whether to show any logs captured from a device in the appium logs. Default false true or false
appium:clearSystemFiles Whether to clean temporary XCTest files (for example logs) when a testing session is closed. false by default true or false
appium:newCommandTimeout How long (in seconds) the driver should wait for a new command from the client before assuming the client has stopped sending requests. After the timeout the session is going to be deleted. 60 seconds by default. Setting it to zero disables the timer. e.g. 100