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Sometime ago I bought this app called Core Data Lab. The app helps inspect CoreData stores created by my mac apps. This is very handy when building Mac apps (probably iOS apps too – I haven't tried it).

Sharing notes here because it took me a while to figure out how to get the app setup and running for my project – I'm just getting started with building apps with Swift.

The entire walkthrough assumes that you are using Xcode to build your mac app.

Open CoreDataLab

Click on “Create a new Core Data Lab project”.

Choose your app file (the one you are building)

When creating a new CoreDataLab project, the app file has to be chosen first.

• Click on “Select App”. This opens the file picker window.
• If you are using Xcode to build your mac app, then the use the keyboard shortcut cmd+shift+G to invoke a prompt to enter a custom folder path
• Enter the path ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData and hit the enter key
• Within this directory, look for your app's folder.

If your app is called Hello, then the folder would look something like Hello-23erwfaewra (some random string follows the folder name).

Within your app's directory, navigate into the following folder structure to find your .app file.

Build
-> Projects
-> Debug
-> Hello.app

After selecting the app, continue to setup the database path

• Like how the app was selected, click on “Select database”
• Use the cmd+shift+G shortcut to enter a custom path
• If your app's identifier is app.example.Hello, then look for a directory like below:

~/Library/Containers/app.example.Hello/

Once inside, navigate to the following path to find the SQLite database file (path depends on your app name).

Data
-> Library
-> Application Support
-> Hello
-> Hello.sqlite

The final path will look something like below. Click on the “Continue” button to proceed.

~/Library/Containers/app.example.Hello/Data/Library/Application Support/Hello/Hello.sqlite

Final step: Give your project a name

Once the project is named, that is the end of the setup. Feel free to explore the data for your CoreData models.

Link – Core Data Lab website