How to export shared container of an iOS App with Xcode6.2?

Question

In our iOS app we utilize a shared container to share files between our main iOS app and its extension (specifically WatchKit Extension), using [NSFileManager containerURLForSecurityApplicationGroupIdentifier:] method. For debugging purposes we need to access the content of this shared container, so we've tried to export the whole App container using the Devices window in Xcode:

But, the Shared storage is not included in the container, probably because it sits in a different path on the Device itself.

The question is how can we get the shared container, if this is even possible?

Answer 1

I've been told by Xcode team members at WWDC that this is not possible (at time of writing, Xcode 7.3 & 8 beta 1). I've filed a radar, which I recommend everyone dupe or comment on so we can get this functionality.

Answer 2

Workaround for actual device -

I generally pause the execution of my app and then run following command in lldb debugger to copy the desired file from shared container to my sandbox container and then I download the container from Xcode.

po [[NSFileManager defaultManager] copyItemAtPath:[[[NSFileManager defaultManager] containerURLForSecurityApplicationGroupIdentifier:GROUP_NAME] URLByAppendingPathComponent:FILE_NAME].path toPath:[[[[[NSFileManager defaultManager] URLsForDirectory:NSDocumentDirectory inDomains:NSUserDomainMask] lastObject] URLByAppendingPathComponent:FILE_NAME] path] error:nil]

Above might look complex but if you break the above, we are doing 3 things -

1. Get shared container file

   [[[NSFileManager defaultManager] containerURLForSecurityApplicationGroupIdentifier:GROUP_NAME] URLByAppendingPathComponent:FILE_NAME].path

2. Get sandbox document directory path:

   [[[[[NSFileManager defaultManager] URLsForDirectory:NSDocumentDirectory inDomains:NSUserDomainMask] lastObject] URLByAppendingPathComponent:FILE_NAME] path]

3. Copy file from Shared container to sandbox

   [[NSFileManager defaultManager] copyItemAtPath:SHARED_PATH toPath:SANDBOX_PATH error:nil]

Answer 3

I'm using this code to print out in the console the path to my local SQLite database:

NSString *groupContainer = [[[NSFileManager defaultManager] containerURLForSecurityApplicationGroupIdentifier:@"group.com.myapp.mycontainer"] path];
NSString *sqlitePath = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/Database.sqlite", groupContainer];
NSURL *url = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:sqlitePath];

I then copy and paste the string in the Finder -> Go to so I go directly to the folder. This works fine in the Simulator but I don't think you're able to access the your iPhone's shared container group from your Mac.

Answer 4

Copy your data from the group container to document directory. Then download the app container using xcode.

NSFileManager.defaultManager().copyItemAtURL(url, toURL: NSURL.fileURLWithPath(AppDelegate.applicationUserDirectory()))

url here can be obtained using below function of NSFileManager

func containerURL(forSecurityApplicationGroupIdentifier groupIdentifier: String) -> URL?

Answer 5

The best solution I've found is creating a backup of your device and then using iExplorer to explore the backup. There are bunch of AppDomainGroup-* folders. Though for some reason not all of the files there are backed up (probably because of applied settings to files to be ignored during backup).