Install Xcode Mac Catalina

  1. Install Xcode Mac Catalina Version
  2. Install Xcode Mac Terminal Catalina
  3. Mac Catalina Install Xcode Command Line Tools

Download and Install macOS Catalina You’ll have to login with your Apple ID in order to get access to all the beta software from Apple → Once you’ve logged in. Many Catalina directories are not writable by the old tool installer. XProtect prevents modification. The newest Xcode installer puts stuff in other places (not /System). Old tools may require using old OS volumes. – hotpaw2 Feb 18 '20 at 16:49.

Xcode is the Mac app that developers use to create apps for Apple’s platforms, like iOS. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how you can download and install Xcode on your Mac.

Here’s what we’ll get into:

  • 3 approaches to download and install Xcode on your Mac
  • Tips and tricks to keep your Xcode up-to-date
  • How to install Xcode betas on your Mac

Ready? Let’s go.

Xcode can only be installed on a Mac. Want to build apps with a PC? Check out your alternatives here.

Mac

How To Download Xcode for macOS

How do you download Xcode for macOS? You’ve got a few options:

  1. Get Xcode via the Mac App Store
  2. Download Xcode via developer.apple.com/downloads
  3. Install through Mac App Store CLI (see below)

Let’s walk through the approaches you can use to download and install Xcode on your Mac, and their advantages. We’ll start with the Mac App Store, because that’s the simplest option.

Here’s how you can download and install via the Mac App Store:

  1. Make sure you’re logged into macOS with your Apple ID
  2. Open the Mac App Store app
  3. Search for “xcode” in the search field, at the top-left
  4. Click on the Xcode app item that appears
  5. Click on the Get or Install buttom at the top-right to download and install Xcode

There are a few things you should know, though. Xcode is a huge app, about 7 gigabyte (GB) in size. You’ll need about 15 GB of free space on your Mac to install Xcode this way.

Installing via the App Store is simple, easy and seamless. Unfortunately, issues with downloading, like a lost connection, etc., usually means you’ll have to reattempt the download.

Author’s Note: Installing Xcode via the App Store never maxes out my download speed — not even close. On a 500 Mbps fiber line, it regularly drops down to 200 KB/s.

Installing Xcode on Mac

Installing Xcode via the Mac App Store is as simple as clicking Install. However, there’s an approach that gives you more control: developer.apple.com/download.

Here’s how that works:

  1. Go to developer.apple.com/download and log in with your Apple ID
  2. Click on More in the top-right of the page, next to Beta and Release
  3. In the search field on the left, type “xcode” and press Enter
  4. Locate and click the appropriate version of Xcode in the list
  5. In the panel slides out, click the .xip filename, i.e. Xcode 12.xip and save/download that file onto your Mac

This will download a .xip file, which includes Xcode. The download size is currently about 7 gigabyte (GB). You’ll need at least twice that size of free storage on your Mac to install Xcode with this approach. Downloading Xcode this way is often faster than through the Mac App Store.

Once you’ve downloaded Xcode, open and unzip the .xip file. This may take a while. You can then drag-and-drop the Xcode.app file to your ~/Applications folder. Finally, start the Xcode app. You’ll be greeted with the following prompt:

Click Install in this prompt. Xcode will now attempt to install the Xcode Command Line Tools on your Mac. They are CLI tools used to compile apps with Xcode, among other things. You often need these tools to work with other programming languages on Mac, as well.

A disadvantage of manually installing Xcode through the Developer portal is that Xcode won’t automatically update. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, however, because you can use this approach to install multiple versions of Xcode side-by-side. This is helpful for debugging or trying out beta versions of Xcode (see below).

There’s another, more hidden benefit. Installing Xcode through the Mac App Store limits you to the most recent version of Xcode. If your version of macOS or Mac OS X doesn’t support the latest version of Xcode, you can usually install older versions via developer.apple.com!

You can pinpoint the latest version of Xcode that your Mac supports by cross-referencing a few tables on Wikipedia. First, figure out what macOS version you have. Then, go to the Xcode wiki, and find your version of macOS in the min macOS version to run column between Xcode 9.x and 12.x. The version of Xcode you can run is in the row above the one you found. For example, the latest version of Xcode you can run on macOS 10.13.6 (High Sierra) is Xcode 10.1. Keep in mind that running an older version of Xcode often limits for which iOS, Swift and SwiftUI versions you can build.

Updating Xcode to The Latest Version

How do you keep your Xcode up-to-date? Apple regularly releases new versions of Xcode. They typically include bug fixes and performance improvements, as well as new Xcode features, like the minimap.

More importantly, new Xcode versions include new versions of the iOS SDKs, Swift and SwiftUI. You can only use these new technologies with the latest versions of Xcode.

You can update your Xcode to the latest versions like this:

  1. If you’ve installed Xcode via the App Store, updates happen automatically, or you can manually initiate an update in the Updates tab of the app
  2. If you’ve manually installed Xcode via developer.apple.com, you’ll also need to manually install the newer version; updates aren’t automatic

How do you know if Xcode has a new version?

  • You get a notification on your Mac (if installed via App Store)
  • Keep an eye on developer.apple.com/news/releases (official)
  • Check out xcodereleases.com
  • Follow @XcodeReleases on Twitter

By the way, there’s a 3rd way to download and install Xcode on your Mac. It’s called mas-cli, and it’s essentially a Command Line Interface (CLI) wrapper for the Mac App Store. It uses the App Store – from the command line… Nice!

You can install mas-cli via Homebrew, a package manager for Mac. Installing mas-cli via Homebrew happens like this:

You can then list apps installed through the App Store on your Mac, with:

You can then search for Xcode like this:

Then, copy the numerical code you see on screen to install Xcode:

You can find outdated apps with mas outdated. You can then upgrade all outdated apps with mas upgrade, or selectively update Xcode by its identifier:

Awesome!

Author’s Note: As I understand it, you’ll need to have installed an app via the App Store before you can install it again with mas-cli.

Getting Xcode Beta Versions

Apple regularly releases beta versions of upcoming software, like iOS, macOS and Xcode. This enables developers to try out new features before they become available to the general public, and provide feedback and bug reports back to Apple.

How can you download and install Xcode’s beta versions? Here’s how:

  1. Go to developer.apple.com/download and log in with your Apple ID
  2. Choose one of the following:
    • Click Beta in the top-right:
      1. Select Applications
      2. Locate the featured Xcode beta you need
      3. Click Download
    • Click More in the top-right
      1. Use the search field to find “xcode”
      2. Locate the Xcode beta you need
      3. Expand the panel by clicking on it
      4. Click the .xip to download
  3. Once you’ve got a .xip, unzip it, copy the .app to your ~/Applications folder, and start the Xcode app.

As we’ve discussed before, you can install multiple versions of Xcode side-by-side with this approach. You can, for example, have the regular Xcode installed via the App Store, and install a beta version of Xcode next to it.

You don’t need to have a paid Developer Account to install betas of Xcode. Just use the free Apple Developer Account. It can occasionally happen that Apple restricts beta software to paid subscribers only, however.

If you’re installing multiple Xcodes, change their filenames to reflect their versions. That makes it easier to tell them apart! Just so you know: when you switch between installed Xcode versions, you usually get that “Install additional components” prompt again. There are ways around that, but it’s simplest to just let it install again whenever Xcode needs to.

Further Reading

Managed to install Xcode on your Mac? Awesome! Now you know how to install Xcode’s betas next to it, and keep everything up-to-date. Here’s what we discussed in this tutorial:

  • 3 approaches to download and install Xcode on your Mac
  • Tips and tricks to keep your Xcode up-to-date
  • How to install Xcode betas on your Mac

Want to learn more? Check out these resources:

With the release date of macOS Catalina, 10.15 Xcode 11 beta also released. At the current time to test macOS Catalina on VirtualBox or VMware Workstation. Besides that, if you are a developer to develop any kind of App for macOS or Windows. But the bad news there are different tools for Windows Microsoft to develop any App, but Xcode is not available for Windows. Because of the software which we install on macOS, we can’t install on Windows. Also, most of the developers who develop Apps are interested to use the world number developer tool XCode. Unfortunately, they are a Windows user and the XCode app isn’t exist for Windows. Now worries certainly we taken out the solution to install XCode on Windows. Don’t be frustrated at this point that you can’t install XCode on Windows.

There are multiple ways that you can install XCode on Windows with a platform. To get started you need some effort to access XCode on Windows. As I mentioned for you with the release date of macOS Catalina Apple release XCode 11. Indeed XCode 11 includes interesting features. Like SwiftUI, MiniMap, Rich Documentation, Swift Package Manager, Inline Diff, Transform iPad Apps to Mac, Debugging and Simulators. However, XCode with its significant features is available now in the Mac App Store. If you don’t have a Mac computer to install XCode on that. Then you can install on the guest operating system of macOS on VirtualBox or VMware. Before that, you have to install macOS Catalina on VMware or install macOS Catalina on VirtualBox. Follow the full instruction on how to install XCode on macOS Catalina 10.15 on Windows PC.

XCode 11 latest version includes the following new features

  • SwiftUI: This year one of the latest announcements for Xcode 11 is SwiftUI, the best option for creating layout easily with swift codes. However, SwiftUI shows us the real interface of an App. Adding animations and stuff has gone easy with SwiftUI.
  • MiniMap: The beautiful look of XCode 11 is on Minimap that appears on the left-handed of the window. It allows the developer to quickly go to the specific part of the coding. This feature is available in some other editor software but newly added to XCode 11.
  • Rich Documentation: This part of the feature in XCode 11 looks awesome. Also, the mark hyphen looks better with bolder text. That allows more text to be visible on the screen, it can give a positive effect.
  • Swift Package Manager: Waiting is enough, to add the third-party libraries independencies. With the release of XCode 11 introduced a separate built-in manager for XCode. To have this feature go to Swift Packages, Add Swift packages.
  • Inline Diff: XCode 11 improved to UI to show changes on each line of code based on version control.
  • Transform iPad Apps to Mac: XCode one of the latest and awesome feature is to turn easily iPad Apps fro Mac natively. You can do this by project navigator.
  • Debugging and Simulators: Now iOS Simulator is working faster then the previous version of XCode. Metal frameworks can be tested on iOS 13 and tvOS 13. iOS 13 dark theme is a game-changer, during debugging iOS it will automatically turn light mode to dark mode.

What is XCode?

XCode is an integrated environment development tool for macOS operating system. XCode is a development tool developed by Apple Inc. However, XCode is using for developing Apps, software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, WatchOS, and tvOS. For the first time, XCode was released in 2003 for macOS users. And now the latest version of XCode version 11.3.1 and available in the Apple Mac Store. You can XCode freely from the Mac App Store for macOS Catalina. XCode is the world No1 development tool that could support, Programming language, C++, Objective-C++, Objective-C, JavaScript, AppleScript, Python, Ruby, and Swift. Certainly, XCode is one of the advanced and professional development tools for macOS Catalina and developers.

Install Xcode Mac Catalina Version

Install macOS Catalina on VMware & VirtualBox

When everything is possible like installing XCode on Windows PC. Also, you installed macOS Catalina on any Virtualization platform then install XCode on it. It is a great chance to install XCode on it. Through this line below you will get the idea on how to install macOS Catalina on VMware Workstation & VirtualBox. However, there are two separate places where you can install macOS Catalina. Whether you want to install macOS Catalina 10.15 on VMware Workstation. Or whether you want to install macOS Catalina on VirtualBox on Windows PC.

There are different virtual machine like VMware Workstation, VirtualBox, Hyper-V. But as I experienced the virtualization installation VMware & VirtualBox is perfect. Both of them are working professionally on Windows PC to run another OS as a guest operating system. The method of installation macOS Catalina on VMware & VirtualBox is the same there aren’t any differences using the VMDK File. But there are separate ways if you use the ISO File of macOS Catalina.

We have done the installation of macOS Catalina perfectly except XCode. On the other hand, you can run multiple Apps of macOS Catalina on a Virtual machine on Windows PC. However, we covered all the files plus installation to make your work easy.

Install XCode on macOS Catalina 10.15 on Windows PC

When you installed macOS Catalina 10.15 on Virtual machine. Then Power on the virtual machine. When you entered the macOS Catalina window click on the Apple Mac App Store. Once the App Store opened on the left-handed search bar type XCode and hit enter.

Type XCode

Once the XCode opened click on Get option

When you clicked on Get, the install button will appear so click on it

Click Install

Now you will be required to login with your Apple ID to install XCode. Enter your Apple ID and password then click Sign in.

Wait until macOS Catalina should download XCode, for the downloading you need a nice internet connection. And the size of XCode is 7.81 GB.

Download XCode

Once the downloading finished it will automatically start installing

When the installation completed click Open

Click Open

Once the XCode launched, you will need to agree with the terms and conditions of it. Click on the Agree button then enter the password and click OK.

Installing the important components of XCode wait until it should complete

Installing components

Install Xcode Mac Terminal Catalina

Once the components installed successfully, the main window of XCode will open. Now go ahead and start XCode on Windows PC.

Read:

Mac Catalina Install Xcode Command Line Tools

Conclusion

That’s it enjoy using XCode on Windows PC by installing macOS Catalina 10.15 on Virtual machines. If you are in trouble of installing macOS Catalina or XCode installation process on Windows PC. Feel free to share your problem below in the comment section. We are happy about listening to your problem in the comment section.