How to remove CocoaPods from a project?

Question

What's the right way of removing CocoaPods from a project? I want to remove the whole CocoaPod. Due to some limitations imposed by my client I can't use it. I need to have just one xcodeproj instead of an xcworkspace.

Answer 1

Removing CocoaPods from a project is possible, but not currently automated by the CLI. First thing, if the only issue you have is not being able to use an xcworkspace you can use CocoaPods with just xcodeprojs by using the --no-integrate flag which will produce the Pods.xcodeproj but not a workspace. Then you can add this xcodeproj as a subproject to your main xcodeproj.

If you really want to remove all CocoaPods integration you need to do a few things:

NOTE editing some of these things if done incorrectly could break your main project. I strongly encourage you to check your projects into source control just in case. Also these instructions are for CocoaPods version 0.39.0, they could change with new versions.

1. Delete the standalone files (Podfile Podfile.lock and your Pods directory)
2. Delete the generated xcworkspace
3. Open your xcodeproj file, delete the references to Pods.xcconfig and libPods.a (in the Frameworks group)
4. Under your Build Phases delete the Copy Pods Resources, Embed Pods Frameworks and Check Pods Manifest.lock phases.
5. This may seem obvious but you'll need to integrate the 3rd party libraries some other way or remove references to them from your code.

After those steps you should be set with a single xcodeproj that existed before you integrated CocoaPods. If I missed anything let me know and I will edit this.

Also we're always looking for suggestions for how to improve CocoaPods so if you have an issues please submit them in our issue tracker so we can come up with a way to fix them!

EDIT

As shown by Jack Wu in the comments there is a third party CocoaPods plugin that can automate these steps for you. It can be found here. Note that it is a third party plugin and might not always be updated when CocoaPods is. Also note that it is made by a CocoaPods core team member so that problem won't be a problem.