Can I delete Xcode archives?

What an archive is

When you choose Product → Archive, Xcode builds your app for distribution and stores the build, with its debugging information, in a bundle: an archive. You see them in Window → Organizer, under Archives, and that is where Distribute App sends a build to App Store Connect or exports it.

On disk they are in ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives, one folder per day you archived, each holding .xcarchive bundles. Inside each are the built app, in Products, and its symbol files, in dSYMs. To see which days take the most space, and then every archive:

du -sh ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives/* 2>/dev/null | sort -h

find ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives -name "*.xcarchive" -maxdepth 2

Why Apple says to keep them

A release build keeps its debug symbols in separate dSYM files, so the app you ship is smaller. A crash report from that build is only readable with that build's own dSYMs: the two are matched by a build ID, and building the same code again, with a different Xcode or different settings, gives a different one. So an archive cannot be remade later. Apple's documentation puts it simply: you must keep the archive for each build of your app you distribute, or you might not be able to diagnose an issue from its crash reports.

If you uploaded the symbols with a build to App Store Connect, Apple adds the names to the crash reports it gives you in Xcode's Crashes organizer. Crash reports that reach you any other way, from a tester's Mac or a customer's email, still need the dSYMs on your Mac.

Which ones are safe to delete

• Archives you never distributed: a test archive, or one that failed validation and was never uploaded or exported. No crash report will ever come from them.
• Everything else is a candidate for moving, not deleting. That includes old versions nobody runs any more, if you would ever want to read a crash report from them.

Move them to another drive

1. Quit Xcode.
2. In Finder, choose Go → Go to Folder, type ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives and press Return.
3. Copy the date folders you want to keep to an external drive or a backup folder. Keep the folder structure as it is.
4. Check the copy: Control-click a copied .xcarchive, choose Show Package Contents, and make sure dSYMs is there.
5. Drag the originals to the Trash, and empty it once you are sure.

If you need an archive on the Mac again, copy it back into the same folder. Use the Trash rather than rm -rf for all of this: an archive deleted outright cannot be rebuilt.

The rest of ~/Library/Developer

Archives are often not the biggest thing Xcode keeps. DerivedData is rebuilt by the next build (where DerivedData lives), device support folders come back when you next connect a device (iOS DeviceSupport), and old simulator runtimes can be removed with simctl (old simulator runtimes).

Where the app comes in

Both editions of RefreshYourMac measure Xcode Archives, each day's archives on their own row, and rate them Backup recommended, with the reason: they may be App Store submissions, and their dSYMs are needed to read crash reports. A scheduled clean never takes them, nor does Clean All Safe unless you move the category there yourself. You pick them one at a time, and the main button is Move Selected to…, which copies them to the drive you choose and removes the originals only once the copy exists. Anything you clean instead goes to the Trash. The Mac App Store edition sees them once you allow it your Developer folder.