xcrun: error: SDK "iphoneos" cannot be located

If you’ve stumbled upon this post, it most likely means that you’re getting this error:

SDK “iphoneos” cannot be located

when trying to run a pod install or perform similar command-line tasks from a Mac terminal while working on a XCode project.

This is a typical scenario when you update a lot of stuff together – such as XCode and CocoaPods.

Luckily enough, the fix is very simple: open a new terminal window and type the following command:

> sudo xcode-select --print-path
 

If XCode is installed, you should see a wrong installation path, such as /Library/Developer/ or something like that: it’s very likely that your XCode installation is located somewhere else – such as in the /Applications/ folder. If that’s so, you can fix your issue by typing the following command:

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

If the xcode-select command return a “not found” error, it most likely means that XCode is not installed: just install it and try again.