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System Requirements

Main Dependencies

Like all Appium drivers, the XCUITest driver requires Appium to be installed. Refer to the Appium documentation for its requirements and prerequisites.

Note

Since version 4.0.0, the XCUITest driver has dropped support for Appium 1, and is only compatible with Appium 2.

In addition to Appium system requirements, the XCUITest driver expects the following prerequisites:

  • Only macOS is supported as the host platform
  • Xcode and Xcode Developer Tools must be installed
    • The Appium team usually needs some time to add support for the most recent Xcode/iOS versions, especially beta versions (check the Xcode/iOS version support section)
  • If automating real devices, additional manual configuration is required. Please check the Real Device Configuration document for more details.
  • Webviews must be debuggable in order to test them. If it is not possible to connect to your webview(s) using Safari remote debugger, then the driver will not be able to identify them.

Optional Dependencies

  • xcpretty can be used to make Xcode output easier to read. It can be installed by running gem install xcpretty.
  • ffmpeg is used for test video recording. It can be installed using brew: brew install ffmpeg
  • idb, go-ios and tidevice can be used to improve device interactions
  • WIX AppleSimulatorUtils can be used to improve some Simulator interactions
  • py-ios-device is required in several mobile: extensions, and can improve the general testing experience for real devices

Validate Dependencies Using Doctor

Since driver version 5.13.0, you can automate the validation for the most of the above requirements as well as various optional ones needed by driver extensions by running the appium driver doctor xcuitest command.

Xcode/iOS Version Support

The XCUITest driver functionality relies on the XCTest framework, and changes in the XCTest API are published in new Xcode and iOS versions. Many major and even some minor Xcode/iOS versions include breaking changes in this API, which require updating the driver code. Similarly, maintaining compatibility with older Xcode/iOS versions often requires workarounds, which are eventually dropped in order to simplify the code and use newer XCTest features.

Generally, the driver aims to support at least two latest major Xcode and iOS versions.

The following table lists the minimum driver versions required for specific Xcode/iOS versions:

Xcode/iOS version Minimum required XCUITest driver version
Xcode 13 / iOS 15 3.48.0
Xcode 14-beta.3 / iOS 16 Beta 4.7.4
Xcode 14.3 / iOS 16.4 4.21.7
Xcode 15 / iOS 17 4.35.0
Xcode 16-beta.5 / iOS 18 7.24.15

The following table lists the last driver versions that are compatible with older Xcode versions:

Xcode version Last supported XCUITest driver version
Xcode 8 2.95.0
Xcode 9 2.133.1
Xcode 10-10.1 3.31.1
Xcode 10.2 3.56.3
Xcode 11 4.3.2
Xcode 12 4.27.2

The following table lists the last driver versions that are compatible with older iOS versions:

iOS version Last supported XCUITest driver version
iOS < 15 4.27.2