How to Launch iOS Simulator and Android Emulator on Mac

Sometimes I face the tasks where I need to run the simulator without launching the application directly.

In this article, I collected several options on how to launch the simulator from the Terminal, folder, search, and Xcode.
Choose which option you like more and use.

The basic way to open a list of simulators is to use Xcode -> Window -> Devices and Simulators.
Here you can create and manage all available simulators. But you cannot run them directly. You need to build your application on the simulator, and then you can run it. But if you need a simulator for other tasks, then check out the options below.

How to launch iOS simulator from Terminal

Run this command to see a list of available simulators and their UDID, then copy UDID of the device and run the next command.

$ xcrun simctl list
$ open -a Simulator --args -CurrentDeviceUDID <your device UDID>

The output example is:

iPhone 6s (34A87958–8945–4151–8131–1638FA5F5916) (Shutdown)

where the numbers are the UDID.

or

If you need to install the application on the device, then specify its location and bundle identifier.

$ xcrun simctl install <your device UDID> <path to application bundle>
$ xcrun simctl launch <your device UDID> <app bundle identifier>

or

Just type this command in Terminal: open -a Simulator.app to launch the most recent simulator.

or

Type this command in Terminal to run the Simulator rigth from the its folder.

$ open /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/Simulator.app

Open in the folder

You can also do this manually. You can open the folder and start the simulator by clicking on it.

Search for iOS simulator using the Search app

As for me, this is the easiest way. I use Alfred, but you can use the standard Mac application Spotlight Search. Just type the simulator word in the search bar and press the enter button.

Open from Xcode

Open Xcode and click on the Xcode tab -> Open Developer Tool -> Simulator

How to launch Android Emulator from Terminal

To see the the Android SDK location run this command.

$ which adb

Copy the path and run the command to display a list of emulators. The output may look something like this:

/Users/user_name/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools/adb

To get a list of devices, change the path to the emulator.

$ /Users/<user_name>/Library/Android/sdk/tools/emulator -list-avds

Copy the name of the needed device and run the command

$ /Users/<user_name>/Library/Android/sdk/tools/emulator -avd <device name>

Open the Emulators in Android Studio

Click on the Tools tab -> AVD Manager

or

Click on the AVD Manager icon on the top icons bar.

Using AVD Manager, you can create new devices, manage them and launch them directly.

I hope this article was helpful!