Fix 'iphoneos cannot be located' in React Native

Oct 21, 2020

Learn how to fix the SDK iphoneos cannot be located error when running pod install for React Native on macOS, using sudo xcode-select to set Xcode.

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While installing React Native to run a project on iOS, I run into a problem.

I went into the project’s ios folder to run pod install as I was instructed to do.

But as I ran that command, I got a long error message back:

Terminal showing pod install command analyzing dependencies and downloading cocoa pods for React Native project

Terminal error showing SDK iphoneos cannot be located message and xcode-select commands being run

From this error I read the error: SDK "iphoneos" cannot be located.

That looked suspicious, right?

So I researched a bit and what fixed the problem was running the command

sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app

Then running pod install again worked fine!

Terminal showing successful pod install completion with React Native dependencies installed after xcode-select fix