SimShelf: Simulator Data
Inspect iOS app databases
Only for Mac
Free
Mac
Logged out, but still signed in? Read the SQLite, preferences and caches your Simulator app actually wrote. Read-only, no network, nothing leaves your Mac.
SimShelf opens the folder Simulator hides two UUIDs deep, and shows you what your app actually saved — no Terminal, no simctl, no hunting for a container path.
WHY THIS EXISTS
The hardest iOS bugs are often state, not code: an auth token that survives logout, a cached response hiding a server-side fix you already shipped, a SQLite migration that left one row wrong, a UserDefaults flag your app never set, an extension reading the wrong file in a shared App Group. Answering "what did this app actually save?" usually means switching between Xcode, Finder, Terminal, a SQLite client, and an ad hoc plist viewer — after first finding the container. SimShelf puts all of it in one window.
EVERY DATA SOURCE, ONE BROWSER
Point SimShelf at a Simulator device once and it shows a Device → App picker built from what's already on disk — no simctl, no private API, no scanning outside what you select. It opens a Simulator app's data container plus any App Groups it shares, an App Group container alone, an .xcappdata package from Xcode's Download Container flow, or a .simshelf snapshot.
Files are organized by what they actually are, not where they sit — a .sqlite file in Caches still shows up under Databases, because that's what you're looking for when hunting a stale cache. Search reaches filenames, paths, decoded plists and JSON, and plain text — and when something can't be searched, SimShelf says so explicitly, so an empty result is never mistaken for "nothing's there."
REAL SQL, SAFELY
Open any SQLite database Simulator wrote — including one mid-write, with a live -wal file — and get a schema browser, a SQL editor, and a result grid that pages instead of loading the whole table into memory. Every value shows what it actually is, not what its column claims: NULL, an empty string, and a zero-length blob look different. BLOBs get a hex view. A cancellable integrity check handles multi-gigabyte files without locking up the app. Export to CSV, JSON, or SQL. SimShelf reads the file header first and picks the correct, non-destructive path — opening a database Simulator is writing to can't corrupt it.
PLISTS, JSON, AND KEYED ARCHIVES
Binary and XML plists, JSON, and text files get a real tree view: search, copy key path, inspect values. NSKeyedArchiver blobs, common in UserDefaults and Core Data metadata, decode byte-by-byte into a browsable graph without unarchiving your app's own classes.
CAPTURE WHAT YOU FOUND
Export a .simshelf snapshot — a single ZIP file that survives a Jira ticket, a Slack message, or an email, unlike a folder. It carries a manifest with SHA-256 hashes of everything inside, so a teammate can trust it's exactly what was captured. Before export, SimShelf plainly reminds you a snapshot may contain tokens or customer data — it isn't scanning for secrets and never claims to; it's a reminder, not a promise.
READ-ONLY, ON PURPOSE
Version 1.0 never writes to anything you're inspecting — not a source file, not a byte, not a modification time. Every SQLite path opens the original with SQLite's own read-only guarantees, or works from a private copy inside SimShelf's sandbox. A debugging tool shouldn't be what corrupts your test data — with SimShelf there's no write path for that.
WHAT SIMSHELF DOESN'T DO YET
SimShelf 1.0 inspects one source at a time — comparing captures is planned for later. It has no delete or reset function; nothing gets cleared, because SimShelf doesn't touch it. It doesn't inspect physical devices, doesn't call simctl, and doesn't launch or control Simulator processes.
NO NETWORK. NOTHING LEAVES YOUR MAC.
SimShelf links no networking library and makes no network connections — nothing to opt out of, because nothing is ever sent. Its local activity log stays on your Mac, never transmitted; it's for your own history, not SimShelf's.
Requires macOS 15.0+. Universal — Apple Silicon and Intel. Built on Swift, SQLite, and zlib, straight from Apple's SDK — no third-party dependencies.
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The developer, TraLand.com, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
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Information
- Seller
- Siu Lun Corley Chan
- Size
- 3.9 MB
- Category
- Developer Tools
- Compatibility
Requires macOS 15.0 or later.
- Mac
Requires macOS 15.0 or later.
- Mac
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 TraLand