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How to show Touch indicator on iOS simulator

Published:

1 min read

Sometimes it is necessary to highlight a single touch event on the iOS simulator’s screen and show the tap that registers it. For example, this is useful when recording a video or a gif using the simulator.

The iOS simulator comes with a pre-configured list of settings, including to display the touch indicator. However, sometimes, it is hard to find them.

Enable Touch Indicator on iOS simulator

To enable the touch indicator, open the terminal window and run the following command:

defaults write com.apple.iphonesimulator ShowSingleTouches 1

It accepts a boolean value of 1.

After running the command, if the iOS simulator is already running, close and restart it.

To test it out, open the simulator and tap on the screen.

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Disable Touch Indicator on iOS simulator

To disable the touch indicator from the terminal window, run the following command to change the boolean value to 0:

defaults write com.apple.iphonesimulator ShowSingleTouches 0

I'm a software developer and a technical writer. On this blog, I write about my learnings in software development and technical writing.

Currently, working as a documentation lead at  Expo.