How to enable iTunes File Sharing in your iOS App

You can enable iTunes File Sharing in two ways, both resulting in the same outcome: the UIFileSharingEnabled key will be set to YES.

Either open your app’s Info.plist file (by default it’s inside the Supporting Files folder in Xcode, as something like YourApp-Info.plist). Then hover over any of the items under Information Property List until you see a small plus icon and click it to add a row. Type UIFileSharingEnabled, then set the left box to YES.

The key will turn into Application supports iTunes file sharing:

Screen Shot 2014-01-11 at 17.37.06

Alternatively, head to your app’s target and select the Info category. Under Custom iOS Target Properties you’ll find the same list populated with human readable keys. Again hover over any of the cells until a plus icon appears, then click it to add a new row. Now use the drop down arrows to pick the option Application supports iTunes file sharing, and set its value to YES.

Now when you connect your device to iTunes you’ll be able to see your app in the file sharing option (under Your Device – Apps):

Screen Shot 2014-01-11 at 17.34.48

Note that your entire app’s Documents folder will be shared when you do this, including all folders you create in it. If you have data that you do not want your users to see you need to store them outside the Documents folder using software like Xender for PC, or start those file names with a “full stop” (such as .testfile). This will hide the file and hence it won’t show up in iTunes.

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4 thoughts on “How to enable iTunes File Sharing in your iOS App

    1. Hi Lisa,

      your targets are displayed when you click on the big blue thing with your App’s name on it, at the top of the file inspector. This brings up your project settings and targets you have. The grey heading will say “TARGETS” (you can have more than one, so pick the appropriate one you’d like to change):

      target

  1. Uh..:how did you get to that screen with the targets want whatnot? I heard mention of “file inspecter but I don’t know what that is

    1. Hi Ethan, the list of targets is displayed when you click on the big blue bar with the title of your project, on the left hand side (the left pane needs to be open for this to show). Just above that big blue bar you’ll see a list of small icons, each of which is an “inspector” in Apple’s colourful language. The one representing a little folder used to be called the File Inspector, but Apple have renamed it into Project Navigator now. Click it to see a list of all files associated with your project.

      If the left hand pane is not showing, take a look at the top right of your screen. There are three small rectangular icons, each of which has a strip on one side (left, bottom and right). Click the left one to show/hide that left pane. Here’s a screenshot from Xcode 6.3:

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