How to decrease build times / speed up compile time in Xcode?

Question

What strategies can be used in general to decrease build times for any Xcode project? I\'m mostly interested in Xcode specific strategies.

I\'m doi

Answer 1

one word: TmpDisk

1. Use TmpDisk to Create a 1.5Gb RAM disk
2. Change Xcode > Preferences > Location > Derived Data to /Volumes/1.5Gb/xcode data
3. Enjoy the speed!

Answer 2

The number of threads Xcode will use to perform tasks defaults to the same number of cores your CPU has. For example, a Mac with an Intel Core i7 has two cores, so by default Xcode will use a maximum of two threads. Since compile times are often I/O-bound rather than CPU-bound, increasing the number of threads Xcode uses can provide a significant performance boost for compiles.

Try configuring Xcode to use 3, 4 or 8 threads and see which one provides the best performance for your use case.

You can set the number of processes Xcode uses from Terminal as follows:

defaults write com.apple.Xcode PBXNumberOfParallelBuildSubtasks 4

Please see Xcode User Defaults for more information.