Add Firebase to your iOS Project

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you need a few things set up in your environment:

• Xcode 9.2 or later
• An Xcode project targeting iOS 8 or above
• Swift projects must use Swift 3.0 or later
• The bundle identifier of your app
• CocoaPods 1.4.0 or later
• For Cloud Messaging:
  • A physical iOS device
  • An Apple Push Notification Authentication Key for your Apple Developer account
  • In Xcode, enable Push Notifications in App > Capabilities

If you don't have an Xcode project already, you can download one of our quickstart samples if you just want to try a Firebase feature. If you're using a quickstart, remember to get the bundle identifier from the project settings, you'll need it for the next step.

Add Firebase to your app

It's time to add Firebase to your app. To do this you'll need a Firebase project and a Firebase configuration file for your app.

To create a Firebase project:

1. Create a Firebase project in the Firebase console, if you don't already have one. Click Add project. If you already have an existing Google project associated with your mobile app, select it from the Project name drop down menu. Otherwise, enter a project name to create a new project.
2. Optional: Edit your Project ID. Your project is given a unique ID automatically, and it's used in publicly visible Firebase features such as database URLs and your Firebase Hosting subdomain. You can change it now if you want to use a specific subdomain.
3. Follow the remaining setup steps and click Create project (or Add Firebase if you're using an existing project) to begin provisioning resources for your project. This typically takes a few minutes. When the process completes, you'll be taken to the project overview.

Now that you have a project, you can add your iOS app to it:

1. Click Add Firebase to your iOS app and follow the setup steps. If you're importing an existing Google project, this may happen automatically and you can just download the config file.
2. When prompted, enter your app's bundle ID. It's important to enter the bundle ID your app is using; this can only be set when you add an app to your Firebase project.
3. During the process, you'll download a GoogleService-Info.plist file. You can download this file again at any time.
4. After you add the initialization code, run your app to send verification to the Firebase console that you've successfully installed Firebase.

Add the SDK

If you are setting up a new project, you need to install the SDK. You may have already completed this as part of creating a Firebase project.

We recommend using CocoaPods to install the libraries. You can install Cocoapods by following the installation instructions. If you'd rather not use CocoaPods, you can integrate the SDK frameworks directly without using CocoaPods.

If you are planning to download and run one of the quickstart samples, the Xcode project and Podfile are already present, but you'll still need to install the pods and download the GoogleService-Info.plist file. If you would like to integrate the Firebase libraries into one of your own projects, you will need to add the pods for the libraries that you want to use.

1. If you don't have an Xcode project yet, create one now.

2. Create a Podfile if you don't have one:

   $ cd your-project directory
   $ pod init
   

3. Add the pods that you want to install. You can include a Pod in your Podfile like this:

   pod 'Firebase/Core'
   
   

   This will add the prerequisite libraries needed to get Firebase up and running in your iOS app, along with Google Analytics for Firebase. A list of currently available pods and subspecs is provided below. These are linked in feature specific setup guides as well.

4. Install the pods and open the .xcworkspace file to see the project in Xcode.

   $ pod install
   $ open your-project.xcworkspace
   

5. Download a GoogleService-Info.plist file from Firebase console and include it in your app.

Initialize Firebase in your app

The final step is to add initialization code to your application. You may have already done this as part of adding Firebase to your app. If you are using a quickstart this has been done for you.

1. Import the Firebase module in your UIApplicationDelegate:

   Swift

   import Firebase
   

   Objective-C

   @import Firebase;
   

2. Configure a FirebaseApp shared instance, typically in your application's application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: method:

   Swift

   // Use Firebase library to configure APIs
   FirebaseApp.configure()
   

   Objective-C

   // Use Firebase library to configure APIs
   [FIRApp configure];
   

Available Pods

These pods are available for the different Firebase features.

Integrate without CocoaPods

If you don't want to use Cocoapods you can still take advantage of the Firebase SDKs by importing the frameworks directly.

1. Download the framework SDK zip (this is a ~500MB file and may take some time).
2. Unzip and see the README file for which Frameworks to include in to your project.
3. Add the ObjC linker flag in your Other Linker Settings in your target's build settings.

Next steps

Learn about Firebase:

• Explore sample Firebase apps.
• Get hands-on experience with the Firebase iOS Codelab.
• Explore the open source code in GitHub.

Add Firebase features to your app:

• Gain insights on user behavior with Analytics.
• Set up user authentication with Authentication.
• Store user info with Realtime Database or blob data with Cloud Storage.
• Send notifications to users with Cloud Messaging.
• Find out when and why your app is crashing with Crash Reporting.