How to Export an Xcode Project to an IPA file

Xcode to IPA Tutorial

Video Tutorial - YouTube

With Xcode, it is not always simple to export your project to an IPA format. First and foremost, the project must built successfully, and able to be run in the iOS simulator program.

1. Click Product on the Finder bar and then click Archive. It will process for a little while but then a window should appear with your Archives available.

2. Right click on your archive you have just made and click Show in Finder.

The file in Finder should be named something like TouchBarClient 11-8-16, 7.19 PM.xcarchive, this should be an xcarchive file format. It is a special zip folder and this contains your application file.

3. Right click the xcarchive file and click Show Package Contents.

4. Navigate within the xcarchive file to Products\Applications\yourapp.app. Keep this open while you proceed to the next step.

5. Open iTunes and go into the Apps section.

6. Drag the application file from earlier into the Apps section in iTunes. It should appear with the name of the application underneath it.

7. Right click the application icon and click Show in Finder.

8. You should now have your yourapp.ipa file ready to be deployed or submitted!

Hope this guide helped you! I couldn't find a proper visual tutorial so I made this to help anyone out there like me. Comment if you have any issues!