This may be useful for developers who wish to without making many terminal requests either permanently delete or reset to their default settings multiple simulators at once.
When a new Simulator device is created, its default data is stored in a CoreSimulator/Devices/ subdirectory. When this new device is opened for the first time, an extra 400MB - 1.5GB data is created. As different applications are tested, each device directory grows. If you remove or clear this data folder, the device becomes unopenable from Simulator's File > Open Simulator menu.
The solution is to copy the chosen device type's signature data, delete the device completely, and then use that signature data to create a new device. Doing this manually is tedious.
Important: This code was written on and for an Aarch64 Mac M1. You may need to change the default directory or some OS-specific commands.
Scenario: this is your current Simulator available devices configuration:
You want to delete your iPhone 12 Pro Max and your iPhone 13 mini Simulators, permanently.
To do this, you would follow the following steps, and the terminal would look like this:
Select devices to clean:
⬡ iPhone SE (3rd generation) [iOS-18-0] -- 17M
⬡ iPhone 16 Pro Max [iOS-18-0] -- 3.4G
⬡ iPad Air 13-inch (M2) [iOS-18-0] -- 17M
⬡ iPhone Xs [iOS-17-5] -- 457M
⬢ iPhone 12 Pro Max [iOS-17-5] -- 401M
‣ ⬢ iPhone 13 mini [iOS-17-5] -- 680M
Would you like to recreate the device?
(Y/n) n
...
New devices state:
iPhone SE (3rd generation) [iOS-18-0] -- 17M
iPhone 16 Pro Max [iOS-18-0] -- 3.4G
iPad Air 13-inch (M2) [iOS-18-0] -- 17M
iPhone Xs [iOS-17-5] -- 457M
The devices would then be removed, and would no longer appear in Simulator's File > Open Simulator > iOS 17.5 menu.
Scenario: you now wish to clear the iPhone Xs of its 457 MB of data, and restore it to its default state:
Select devices to clean:
⬡ iPhone SE (3rd generation) [iOS-18-0] -- 17M
⬡ iPhone 16 Pro Max [iOS-18-0] -- 3.4G
⬡ iPad Air 13-inch (M2) [iOS-18-0] -- 17M
‣ ⬢ iPhone Xs [iOS-17-5] -- 457M
Would you like to recreate the device?
(Y/n) y
...
New devices state:
iPhone SE (3rd generation) [iOS-18-0] -- 17M
iPhone 16 Pro Max [iOS-18-0] -- 3.4G
iPad Air 13-inch (M2) [iOS-18-0] -- 17M
iPhone Xs [iOS-17-5] -- 17M
The device has been reduced in size to the default 17MB, but still appears in and is openable from Simulator's File > Open Simulator > iOS 17.5 menu:
