NSUserDefaults not cleared after app uninstall on simulator

Solution 1:

I think this is due to a bug in the iOS8 Beta Simulator.

The expected behavior is that when the app is deleted, the NSUserDefaults for that app are deleted as well.

• However, NSUserDefaults are NOT deleted when you remove an app from the simulator.
• They are correctly deleted when you delete them from a physical device running iOS8.

A quick and annoying solution for now is to click, iOS Simulator -> Reset Content and Settings.

Xcode 9.2 with Simulator 10 still presents this issue. Menu option is now Hardware .. Erase All Content and Settings

I submitted a bug report btw

Solution 2:

Since Reset Content and Settings is a nuclear option, you could consider two other options until the bug on the iOS 8/Xcode 6 GM simulator is addressed:

1. You could manually delete the plist file where the NSUserDefaults are stored. This is currently located at ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/*some_device_id*/Library/Preferences/com.yourcompany.yourapp.plist It's a little tedious to find the right simulator to work with among the UUID directory names. EDIT: 2014-10-28 20-34-52 Correct path: ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/*some_device_id*/data/Library/Preferences/com.yourcompany.yourapp.plist

2. You could perform "surgery" on that plist (using a run script build phase perhaps) using plistbuddy e.g.

/usr/libexec/plistbuddy -c "Set :BSDidMoveSqliteDb 0" path_to_plist