iPhone not appearing in Develop menu in Safari

Question

On my "Develop" menu, in Safari, the iPhone no longer appears after updating Safari to the latest version, making it impossible to inspect and debug sites and apps.

I restarted the iPhone, killed and relaunched Safari, restarted my Mac too, but the issue is still there. Affects both Safari mobile and phonegap applications.

Anyone experienced the same problem?

Pretty sure that mobile Safari and the Finder and iTunes will all soon be removed from the corresponding Apple App Stores because they don't work properly. Therefore they will not pass Apple's exacting app review process designed to ensure that users are delighted, so Apple will remove them, just like they do with everybody else's apps. Because otherwise, it would be clear that Apple has a monopoly, and we all know that that's against the law, so that can't be true. This will mean that Apple will have to debug their code soon. (alarm goes off... waking up...). — user2330237, Dec 02 '20 at 15:57

score 103 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 04 '19 at 21:17

103

FWIW, I tried all of these suggestions, and it worked briefly after resetting Privacy & Location settings but stopped working immediately after.

What ended up working as a long term solution was to turn both WiFi and Bluetooth off on the iPhone while connected to the Mac.

answered Nov 04 '19 at 21:17

Joe Seifi

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that makes no sense - but its the only thing that worked for me too – Paul Sturm Nov 13 '19 at 21:33
Me too, how dreadfully annoying. Fortunately I can reconnect wifi and the developer tools still work despite the phone disappearing from the Develop menu. Ridiculous! – Buck Doyle Nov 16 '19 at 06:19
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Can also confirm, resetting just the privacy and location settings allowed my phone to show up under the develop menu in safari. It then asked me to "trust" the computer on my phone again. As soon as I did that it disappeared from the develop menu again. Turning off wifi and bluetooth made it reappear so can be used for debugging but it disappears again the moment wifi and bluetooth are turned back on on the phone. Definite one to add to the long iOS13/macOS Catalina bug list. – Carbonara Nov 29 '19 at 16:14
Works like a dream. Thanks! – Chuck Le Butt Dec 10 '19 at 14:56
THANK YOU JOE! Had this issue for months and turning off both the Wifi and Bluetooth did the trick. I knew about resetting the Privacy & Location settings, but that only sometimes worked, if only briefly. I'm running MacOS Catalina 10.15.2, and iPhone 8 iOS 13.3. – Sam Sverko Jan 17 '20 at 19:47
Thank you for this one! I'm soon on the verge of Fairphone and Rasberry Pi :/ – Hans Magnus Jan 22 '20 at 08:10
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FWIW: I didn't reset network settings, or location and privacy, but turning off Wifi/Bluetooth and having the phone connected using a lightning cable made the phone appear on `Safari > Develop`. I then selected the `Safari > Develop > [iPhone] > Connect via Network` option and I could now inspect, even with lightning cable removed. – epsilon42 Feb 07 '20 at 01:59
This is the only thing that worked for me. Just a side note. If I have lighting cable plugged in and it does NOT show up in the develop menu. Just disable wifi/bluetooth on phone. Then you MUST quit completely out of safari then launch safari again and you will then see your device. Select your device and finally you can debug. You can also re-enable wifi and bluetooth. This is very annonying. Has anyone submitted a bug report on this? – gimp3695 Mar 15 '20 at 21:17
i had to reset my privacy settings recently since my phone was asking me, if it should trust the computer each time i plugged it in. now this is solved. but on desktop in safari it is not showing up, when connecting. unless i uncheck wifi & bluetooth. wtf? – honk31 Mar 18 '20 at 08:32
I had to quit safari after doing this but then after restarting safari the phone shows up. – Tim G May 12 '20 at 17:14
What kind sorcery is this? How does this work? – Pushkin Mar 02 '22 at 05:00

Francesco Frapporti · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-25T12:57:17.370

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Turns out, my issue was that the update to the latest iOS version disabled the "Web Inspector" settings on my iPhone. To re-enable it, go to Settings > Safari > Advanced.

edited May 25 '17 at 12:57

answered Nov 21 '14 at 15:16

Francesco Frapporti

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IOS 11.3 reset this setting to default, you must re enable it Settings > Safari > Advanced > – Mike Castro Demaria Apr 20 '18 at 06:47

score 50 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 04 '20 at 23:42

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In our case we needed to reset the trust between iPhone & Mac. From iPhone Settings > General > Reset choose reset Privacy & Location and also Network Settings. The phone reboots, we reconnected to the laptop, tapped Yes to Trust this Computer and now Mac Safari can once again debug mobile Safari.

edited Oct 04 '20 at 23:42

jox

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answered Sep 30 '19 at 21:38

ajayel

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This was exactly what I needed! After restarting my phone and mac multiple times, updating, turning settings off/on again it was just a matter of resetting Privacy & Location then Network Settings (which restarted my device). Then I had to turn on Web Inspector once again and I was connected! – Dani Amsalem Oct 03 '19 at 20:15
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This worked for me. Like you said, needed to reset both "Privacy & Location" as well as "Network Settings". Didn't work with just one of these resets; had to be both. Thank you! – pk1557 Oct 22 '19 at 16:23
For me with an iPhone XR and a Macbook Pro with official USB-C to USB-A and iPhone cable, changing only "Privacy & Location" worked. – Nighto Nov 12 '19 at 19:36
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Resetting Privacy & Location had no effect for me, only Network settings reset resolved the issue. – Alexander Kim Nov 18 '19 at 16:57
Worked for me, iPhone XR – dungey_140 Dec 20 '19 at 13:08
@pk1557 Resetting network settings is what did it for me! Legend! – Matt B Jan 23 '20 at 18:23
I spent hours rebooting , restarting Safari , toggle options in the IOS settings... so this did work for me too. Connection was broken after installing a Mac OSX/Safari update for Mojave 10.14.6 and simultaneously installing an IOS 13.3.1 update. Plugging in the phone did not inform about a trust problem (and ironically Xcode apps could be still deployed to this phone) – Leo Feb 12 '20 at 23:20
You are the MVP. – Bjorn.B Apr 01 '21 at 14:23

score 37 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 24 '19 at 14:25

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What helped for me was the following:

Open Xcode
On the Menu: Window -> Devices and Simulators
Check the Connect via network checkbox. (If it is already selected then uncheck it and re-check)

answered Dec 24 '19 at 14:25

Itzik.H

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so dumb. after catalina update this completetly broke but thankfully this fixed it. so insane how buggy these new max updates are – Eudis Duran Jan 08 '20 at 01:52
This worked *and* I didn't have to reset any of my iPhone settings! Magnifico! – Gifford N. Sep 01 '20 at 04:41

score 19 · Answer 5 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

In my case, resetting only Privacy & Location did the job (but only temporarily, see update below!).

Try only resetting that before resetting your whole network settings for nothing!

Almost immediately after reset, the "Trust this Computer" popup appeared and after trusting my device appeared in the Develop menu.

Update:

I kept having regular issues with this (having to reset it multiple times per day, restarting Safari and a combination of other things) until I found the real fix here:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/58654871/167983

@BearSnowstorm:

One more tip to try - after trying many of the above suggestions I turned off "Sync with this iPhone over Wi-Fi" in iTunes.

Voila! Got my iPhone into the Develop menu!

(for context, this is in Mojave 10.14.6, iOS 13.1.3, Safari 13.0.3)

My comment on that answer describes the same thing but updated for Catalina:

I had recurring issues with this and the only way I could make it work (sometimes) was to reset Location & Privacy, close Safari, unplug my device, etc. It was always a temporary fix though and the issues would come back very quickly. This however seems to work more permanently! I confirm what @Florian said: the setting was off by default for me, turning it on then off (after letting the sync finish) worked. On Catalina, this setting is named "Show this iPhone when on Wi-Fi" under General when you select your iDevice in the Finder.

Reading that answer my instinct was that it could not possibly make a difference, but it does! I have had zero issues since I did this. Try it!

Same. After resetting Privacy & Location on my iPhone, then restarting the phone, re-trusting on both ends, and restarting Safari a few times it finally popped up in the Develop menu. At first, when selecting 'iPhone X' from the Develop menu, it said 'connecting... no inspectable applications'. This resolved after restarting Safari a couple times. — adam5280, Nov 13 '19 at 22:28

score 9 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 21 '16 at 09:31

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Some cables (even official Apple Lightning Connector) don't support this feature because of some damage inside. My Lightning Connector was able to charge the iPhone but prevented to use dev tools on the Mac. I used another cable to successfully connect to dev tools.

answered Jun 21 '16 at 09:31

rodionreid

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cable is problem in my case. Thanks. – Stiger Sep 12 '16 at 05:38
In my case the problem was the MBP USB-C to USB adapter used to connect the iPhone through a Lightning-to-USB cable. Using a different adapter solved the problem. – Martin Apr 10 '19 at 11:28
I have iPad pro works , but iPhone doesn't , on exact same cable and same port – qtwrk Jun 24 '20 at 00:44
I had my cable connected through a couple USB hubs. Connecting directly to the Mac fixed it. Crazy. – Jordan Eldredge Aug 18 '23 at 16:21

score 4 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 21 '20 at 07:05

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In my case, this was totally a network issue. Everything works well when I used 4G network. If I use my wi-fi, safari failed to detect my device.

answered Feb 21 '20 at 07:05

SomeHowWhite

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Sometimes small answer saves thousand years of life :) – kupendra Aug 14 '20 at 06:35

score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Dec 28 '17 at 15:33

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Seems the front ports of my Mac Pro were not working correctly, plugged the cable on the keyboard port and I was able to connect to the dev tools.

answered Dec 28 '17 at 15:33

Julio Garcia

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score 3 · Answer 9 · answered May 01 '20 at 14:39

Turning off wifi on the iPhone allows it to appear in the develop menu.

The best and permanent solution in Catalina is to open a new Finder window, select in sidebar, then check 'Show this iPhone when on wifi'.

To disable caches (and to avoid constantly having to delete website data) open your site in a new Private Window. Changes to stylesheets will then update as normal.

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Dec 13 '19 at 06:34

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I know all these tricks but after installing Catalina none of them worked. What DID work for me was Settings > Developer > Clear Trusted Computers. Strangely, the phone appears in the Safari Developer menu on the Mac, but the phone never asked to re-trust the computer!

The phone disappears again sometimes, but the same trick gets it back.

MacOS and iOS still look beautiful, but both are turning into a messy pigsty underneath. I sometimes wonder if Apple still even cares. :(

answered Dec 13 '19 at 06:34

Flyingkiwi

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The `Settings > Developer > Clear Trusted Computers` option isn't showing on my iPhone =( – Qasim Mar 15 '20 at 12:47
this did the trick for me! I love the variety of solutions on this issue... Apple sometimes like us to suffer – mikey Dec 14 '20 at 05:21

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Feb 16 '20 at 14:09

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I've tried with the reset of Privacy and Location but it didn't work. What worked for me was disabling the hotspot from the phone. With the hotspot active Safari doesn't shows the iPhone in the developer menu.

answered Feb 16 '20 at 14:09

wezzy

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score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Aug 26 '20 at 16:03

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Crazy but true, when i disconnected bluetooth and tried to check under develop option, connected device was shown.

answered Aug 26 '20 at 16:03

pdp kum

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score 1 · Answer 13 · answered Oct 04 '21 at 13:05

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In my case the only solution was to reboot my Macbook... stupid but effective solution

answered Oct 04 '21 at 13:05

Oneiros

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score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Jan 28 '20 at 14:26

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My solution was simply to move the cable to a different USB port.

answered Jan 28 '20 at 14:26

code_vengeance

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score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Oct 18 '21 at 12:43

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reboot fix everything，works for me.

answered Oct 18 '21 at 12:43

CaiZongding

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score -1 · Answer 16 · answered Dec 19 '19 at 18:30

In my case, I was working from home and had a VPN tunnel to my work that was redirecting all traffic through my company's network. Disabling that revealed the phone in the Develop menu again.

As an alternative, connecting with VPN and disabling WIFI and Bluetooth works.

iPhone not appearing in Develop menu in Safari

16 Answers16

Update: