Step One: Install Database Browser for SQLite
Download and install Database Browser for SQLite.
Step Two: Dude, where’s my database?
A little bit of prep work from the command line will save you time later.
When you use the simulator to test your app, all of the sandboxed files are written to the device directory. The filename will be your AppName.sqlite.
The path to the SQLite database file will look like this:
/Users/kirby/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/402FCD3E-7A98-4B5A-9CB1-83B1A3F85B47/data/Containers/Data/Application/AB4D98C4-B86A-4FE3-B557-CFC60C83893E/Documents/App.sqlite
Not something that you want to try to remember or waste your time hunting for as you install and reinstall apps.
You guessed it—the directory names are intentionally unpredictable for security purposes.
Symbolic Link
To make it easier to get to the root of Devices, use the ln command from the Terminal command prompt.
First, cd into your home directory, and then create a symbolic link between the real Devices directory and a name of your choosing, e.g. simDevices.
$ cd ~
$ ln -s /Users/kirby/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices simDevices
$ ls -l simDevices
lrwxr-xr-x 1 kirby staff 52 Aug 28 17:24 simDevices@ -> /Users/kirby/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices
Step Three: Associate SQLite with .sqlite files
We want the Database Browser for SQLite application to be the default application for opening .sqlite files.
Let’s find a .sqlite file in our new simDevices shortcut.
Use the find command to search through all of our Simulator devices looking for the database file associated with our app.
$ cd ~/simDevices
$ find . -name Kody.sqlite
./402FCD3E-7A98-4B5A-9CB1-83B1A3F85B47/data/Containers/Data/Application/AB4D98C4-B86A-4FE3-B557-CFC60C83893E/Documents/Kody.sqlite
Now cd into that directory and open the finder at that location.
NOTE: When you cut and paste the text from your find result, remove the leading ./ characters and the AppName.sqlite filename from the tail.
$ cd 402FCD3E-7A98-4B5A-9CB1-83B1A3F85B47/data/Containers/Data/Application/AB4D98C4-B86A-4FE3-B557-CFC60C83893E/Documents
$ open .
We then right-click on the .sqlite file in finder and set sqlitebrowser to always open files of this type.
Step Four: Command line fu
The prep work is complete.
As you create more apps and more databases, how do you easily find and open them in SQLite Browser?
As we saw above, the find command gets us to the file.
$ cd ~/simDevices
$ find . -name Kody.sqlite
./402FCD3E-7A98-4B5A-9CB1-83B1A3F85B47/data/Containers/Data/Application/AB4D98C4-B86A-4FE3-B557-CFC60C83893E/Documents/Kody.sqlite
Almost there!
But we don’t want to just find the file, we want to open it, too.
We’ll use the pipe command | to pass the output from find to the input of the xargs command.
$ find . -name Kody.sqlite | xargs open
And that’s it!
You can now browse and edit (be careful!) your SQLite database.
Check out more resources on Kirby’s blog, Swift Coder.
