When developing iOS apps, you will run into a situation where you need to exclude an architecture from being built. This is quite common when working with third-party libraries or APIs that are not free to use. For example, when using Photoshop as a image editing app, it can be very annoying to have to buy their premium package just so you can save one more natively!

Xcode has some settings under Build Settings -> Architectures which allow you to choose whether to include or exclude certain architectures for your project. By doing this, you can avoid paying extra money for an unnecessary feature of the app.

This article will go over all the ways to disable archtectures in Xcode 9, along with what each setting does.

Open the project in Xcode

The next step is to open your project up in Xcode so you can begin adding new architectures! If you have already completed this process, you are already here!

To add an architecture to your project, go into Build Settings under iOS Deployment Target or Android Minimum API. Click on “Add” then choose “Architecture” from the drop down menu.

You will see that there is now an option for each architecture available, which includes x86_64, armv7s, and more. You can check the box next to each one to include it in your build.

If you would like to exclude certain architectures, use the toggle button beside them to turn off inclusion. To completely remove a specific architecutre, delete the entry below it by highlighting it and clicking Delete.

Open the project in the Finder

If you want to exclude an app or feature from being built, then you will first need to close it down so that it can’t be opened within Xcode. You can do this by opening the project file (Xcodeproj) directly through the Finder.

Open up your computer’s Files manager and find where your computer stores all of its files.

Find the folder named Xcodeproj. This is typically found at ~/Documents/XCode/Projects/.

Inside this folder, you should see three folders – one for each device type (phone, iPad, etc). Within these phone-specific folders are usually two more subfolders: Debug and Release.

If there isn’t a “Debug” or “Release” folder inside the Phone specific folder, create them using the same process but add no value to -1 under Value:

Click Save to save your changes.

Now that those settings have been saved, we can close the program!

By closing the application, it removes itself from the task list which means it cannot be launched via the launcher icon anymore.

Right click on the app icon

The second way to add an excluded architecture is by right clicking on the app icon in the project navigator. You will then have the option to include or exclude any of the architectures from being built.

By using this method, you can also remove an existing exclusion at any time.

Open the app in Xcode

The next step is to open your project up in Xcode so that you can add an excluded file or files. Luckily, this process is very easy!

To do this, choose “Show All Files” from the top menu bar. This will take you through all of the folders and files within your project.

Once inside the Sketch folder, find the.xcproj XML document. You will want to right-click on this document and select ‘Open With…’ then pick either Text Editor or XML Editor depending on what type of editor you use for editing documents.

Using the same method, open the InfoPlist.strings XML document. Once again, click on the Document node and then select the appropriate text box option.

Now, scroll down slightly below these two documents until you reach the Build settings section. Here, look under Architectures. You will see some listed architectures already including both 64-bit and 32-bit. Simply check the box next to each one that you would like to exclude.

Open the app in the Organizer

In the App Section of Xcode, you will find all versions of your apps along with notes, screenshots, and more. To include or exclude an architecture from being compiled into your binary, go into the “App Version” section.

You can either add or remove architectures here. If you want to completely skip including a certain set of architectures in your build, you can do so by selecting ‘No Archive’ for that version. This way, they are still part of the project, but they are excluded during compilation.

You also have the option to choose between Default, Universal (arm64 + x86_64) and iPhone only (just x86_32). These settings determine what kinds of devices your app is compatible with and how it compiles itself depending on device screen size and features.

Look at the project file

One of your projects may be using an included architecture, which we have already discussed. If you want to exclude some architectures from being built, you will need to check this under Build Settings – Architectures.

Here, you can see that I have excluded arm64 for both Debug and Release builds. This means that these two configurations cannot use my new custom framework, so they are broken at the moment!

If you would like to include only certain architectures for a project, you can do it by adding them here as well. For example, if I wanted to build just x86_32 and amd64, then I would add those into the list here.

Look at the target file

If you want to add an architecture to your project that is not present, then first you will need to make sure it does not already exist.

If you open up the “General” tab of any given scheme or run configuration, there will be an option to include additional architectures for compilation.

By default these are set to empty strings (no value) which means all available architectures are included by the compiler.

You can easily remove this setting by clicking the small button next to the field titled “Architectures” and selecting “Remove All.” Once done, close the settings window to apply changes.

Look at the schemes file

One of the first things you will notice about iOS apps is that they usually have several different scheme settings. These are typically categorized into colors, fonts, and then more specific settings such as include or exclude files from being packed up when creating an app package (or APK).

These settings apply not just to UI elements like buttons and labels, but also to images and other non-interface items. This way, you can pack up all of your assets and resources separately so that you do not need to re-download them later if you want to switch phones or use a new device with no internet connection.

There is one setting within this menu that most people forget about, however. You can exclude certain architectures for the project by choosing “Architecture” under Build Settings and checking the box next to Include only arm64 and x86.

This removes 64 bit and 32 bit machines compatibility from the project completely! There is no way to add it back in unless you recompile the code yourself. For regular users who may not know how to go about doing this, there are some free online guides to help you out.