Adding images or videos to iPhone Simulator

Explain step by step of Airsource Ltd's answer for adding image to simulator:

1. Drag it to simulator, then Safari opens (or browse to the Image in the internet using Safari)
2. Hold your click on the image
3. When the pop-up appears, choose Save Image and enjoy ;)

Update: for iOS Simulator 4.2, do these steps twice to get it work. Thanks kevboh!

Update: This also works for iOS Simulator 6.1

The simplest way to get images, videos, etc onto the simulator is to drag and drop them from your computer onto the simulator. This will cause the Simulator to open the Photos app and start populating the library.

If you want a scriptable method, read on.

Note - while this is valid, and works, I think Koen's solution below is now a better one, since it does not require rebooting the simulator.

Identify your simulator by going to xCode->Devices, selecting your simulator, and checking the Identifier value. Or you can ensure the simulator is running and run the following to get the device ID xcrun simctl list | grep Booted

Go to

~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/[Simulator Identifier]/data/Media/DCIM/100APPLE

and add IMG_nnnn.THM and IMG_nnnn.JPG. You will then need to reset your simulator (Hardware->Reboot) to allow it to notice the new changes. It doesn't matter if they are not JPEGs - they can both be PNGs, but it appears that both of them must be present for it to work. You may need to create DCIM if it doesn't already exist, and in that case you should start nnnn from 0001. The JPG files are the fullsize version, while the THM files are the thumbnail, and are 75x75 pixels in size. I wrote a script to do this, but there's a better documented one over here(-link no longer work).

You can also add photos from safari in the simulator, by Tapping and Holding on the image. If you drag an image (or any other file, like a PDF) to the simulator, it will immediately open Safari and display the image, so this is quite an easy way of getting images to it.

For iOS 7 I did the following:

copy photos to these two folders:

~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/6.1/Media/DCIM/100APPLE
~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/7.0/Media/DCIM/100APPLE

delete these 4 files only (to avoid duplicates on relaunch):

~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/6.1/Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite-shm
~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/6.1/Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite-wal
~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/7.0/Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite-shm
~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/7.0/Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite-wal

Method 1 (Easiest Way): If you have your image on Mac

You can drag an image from the Finder on your Mac to Simulator, and it is saved to the Saved Photos album.

Method 2: If its on any URL

To save an image from a webpage to the Photos app

1. Place the pointer on the image you want to save, and hold down the mouse button or trackpad.
2. When the menu appears, click Save Image to save the image to the Photos app in an iOS simulator.
3. The image is saved to the Saved Photos album in the Photos app.

Incase someone looking for Apple Documentation regarding Copying and Pasting in Simulator.

If you can not drag and drop your files because you experience the error:

One or more media items failed to import: : The operation couldn’t be completed. (PHPhotosErrorDomain error -1.)

Move your files into the Documents folder and then drag them into the simulator. This will trigger the simulator to ask for permissions to access your files. Having them inside the Downloads folder, will not.

For iOS 5.1 this is further changed to new path

~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/5.1/Media/DCIM/100APPLE

In OS X Catalina with Xcode 11 you have to do this differently.

First you MUST start the simulator. If you want to copy, say a photo to MULTIPLE simulated devices. Start all of them up. Then Right Click on a SINGLE (Multiple images will fail. ONLY does a single file.).

Share -> Simulator

A 'share sheet will pop-up. You must choose an active simulator in the combo box and hit send.

It will send one to many but NOT many to many of selected photos.

I hope this helps folks. Drag and drop was supported in the last versions of Xcode and OS X but not with OS X Catalina and Xcode 11.

While this IS in the directions it currently IS NOT working.

What DID work for me was to first import my images into iPhoto on OS X and then DRAG/DROP them from my OS X iPhoto and drop into the simulator. It would appear the drag/drop for photos into the simulator is CURRENTLY only working from OS X iPhoto. :-(

None of the answers above worked for me on iOS 15.

I simply opened Files app and dragged and dropped the image there. It automatically imported the image to the Photos app and I was able to use everywhere through my simulator.

Cheers!

With iOS 11 and Xcode 9, just drag and drop photos to the Simulator. It will automatically import them in the Library app. Very easy!

1. Using your pc just Send the image via your email

2. Open the IOS-Simulator then open the email and download the image

3. just click and hold the mouse on the image, and from the options that will be displayed

4. Then, it will be automatically saved to your iOS-Simulator's photo gallery

1. Ensure the device is running.

2. Execute the following in terminal:

open ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/$(xcrun simctl list | grep Booted | grep -Eo '[a-zA-Z0-9]*-[a-zA-Z0-9]*-[a-zA-Z0-9]*-[a-zA-Z0-9]*-[a-zA-Z0-9]*')/data/Media/DCIM

Further regex ref @ https://regex101.com/r/tY951n/3