Admin March 20, 2017 October 16, 2020 1 Comment on Download Xcode: Download Xcode 12/11/10/9 xip Tweet Download links for Xcode 10.1, Xcode 10, Xcode 9, Xcode 8, XCode 7, XCode 6 are given below. Xcode is a large app and when you install it from the Mac App Store, it tends to download a little slowly. Often users are tempted to install it via a torrent but that’s not a good idea as it might have been tampered with. To that end, do not use any other source other than the Mac App Store to download Xcode.

As an iOS developer you need to periodically update your Xcode, on your own machine and on your CI/CD server if you automate your development workflow. There are multiple ways to do this so do not waste your time and use the fastest way possible.

Forget Mac App Store, use Apple Developer Portal

Installing Xcode from the Mac App Store might seem like a convenient way to do so but it is too slow and inflexible. You cannot use the Mac App Store to install multiple version of Xcode at the same time if you need them, like when testing with a Xcode beta for an upcoming iOS release. Download from the Mac App Store is incredibly slow and sometimes not even available for days after release (like 11.2.1).

The place to go is the Apple Developer Portal where you can find all the Xcode versions, including the betas.

Faster download with aria2

Downloading Xcode from the Apple Developer Portal is faster than using the Mac App Store, but it can be made even better. You just need to use the right tools.

Install aria2 from Homebrew and uses this Ruby script from Ian Dundas:

This script downloads the given Xcode by URL from the Apple Developer Portal, but uses up to 16 separate connections to do so. You will see a significant download speed improvement.

Make sure you use the “More” site at https://developer.apple.com/download/more/ even for downloading the latest version of Xcode.

When copying the ADCDownloadAuth cookie make sure you copy the correct value, Safari adds all kinds stuff around it when you just use “copy value”.

Faster install with xip and deleting previous Xcode first

When you install the Xcode xip file you need to extract it. You can double click it in Finder and wait or you can use

Using xip from the command line is much faster because it does not verify the file signature like double clicking in Finder. Of course this is a potential security risk, so it is up to you to decide if it is worth it.

Another trick is not to drag the extracted Xcode.app to /Applications immediately but delete the existing /Applications/Xcode.app first. I guess this is related to Finder first getting the list of those thousands of files in the Xcode.app before the update.

Xcode 11 Download Mac 10.13

See also