Xcode 13 Missing Info.plist

When you create a new SwiftUI project with Xcode 13, or later, you may notice it doesn’t have an Info.plist file. What’s going on?

Last updated: Nov 10, 2022

Xcode 13 Project Templates

First of all, this change only affects projects created with Xcode 13 or Xcode 14. If you open a project created with Xcode 12 or earlier with Xcode 13/14 it does not change the Info.plist handling.

Storyboard Project

Creating a new storyboard-based iOS project with Xcode 13 gives me a project with an Info.plist in the project navigator:

Xcode Project Navigator showing Info.plist file

Clicking on the file to examine the contents reveals that this is not the usual Info.plist:

Info.plist containing Application Scene Manifest settings.

It only has some default settings for the Application Scene Manifest, with multiple windows disabled. Where are the other settings?

SwiftUI Project

The change is more noticeable if you create a new SwiftUI project. There is no Info.plist file in the project navigator (or on disk) at all:

Project navigator for SwiftUI project with missing Info.plist

Note also that the SwiftUI template no longer uses a launch screen storyboard (see Dropping launch storyboards).

What’s Happening?

As far as I know this was not covered in a WWDC21 session and the only documentation seems to be the Xcode 13 release notes.

Projects created from several templates no longer require configuration files such as entitlements and Info.plist files. Configure common fields in the target’s Info tab, and build settings in the project editor. These files are added to the project when additional fields are used. (68254857)

The idea seems to be to create the full Info.plist for the target at build time and only generate an Info.plist project file for the changes you make from the defaults.

Changing The Info Settings

Some Xcode templates, like the SwiftUI template, don’t create an Info.plist in the initial project. You can still make changes using the Info tab of the target settings:

Custom iOS Target Properties

Once you make a change Xcode adds the Info.plist file to the project and it shows up in the project navigator. For example, if I add some App Transport Security Settings in the Info tab:

App Transport Security Settings - Allow Arbitrary Loads YES

Xcode creates an Info.plist file containing just those App Transport settings:

Info.plist in navigator

We can then change the setting in either place and, in theory, Xcode keeps the two sets of settings in sync.

I say in theory because I’ve seen some problems in practise. For example, if I edit the Info settings from the project navigator Xcode doesn’t update the settings on the Info tab for the target to reflect the changes I made. I need to close and reopen the project for it to update. This still happens in Xcode 14 (FB9397345).

Build Settings

To add to the confusion there are also some Info.plist settings that only show up in the build settings for the target. These are mostly settings you change using the General tab for the target such as the supported orientations and launch screen:

Info.plist values in build settings

You can change these settings in the General tab, the Info tab or in the build settings (but they don’t show up in the Info.plist file you see in the project navigator).

The Packaging section of the build settings allows you to disable Xcode generating the Info.plist file (more on that in a moment):

Packaging build settings

Backwards Compatibility

The Xcode 13 project format is not backwards compatibile with Xcode 12. If you create a project in Xcode 13 you cannot open it with Xcode 12. Apple mentions this in the release notes:

New projects created with Xcode 13 use a new project version. Using the new projects with an older version of Xcode requires changing the project version in the File inspector along with manual migration of the configuration settings for Info.plist and entitlements you can now specify in the target build settings. (77344653)

To make the project compatible with Xcode 12 change the project format in the Xcode file inspector:

Project format Xcode 12.0 compatible

You also need to manually migrate back to a non-Xcode generated Info.plist or you’ll be missing settings when you build the project with Xcode 12. Copying each setting manually from the Info tab is painful. You may find it easier to start with a default Info.plist created with Xcode 12 and add any changes to it.

Finally disable Xcode from generating the Info.plist file in the build settings:

Generate Info.plist File - No