XCUIScreenshot – Creating Screenshots in UI Test

By default, Xcode will automatically create a screenshot of the app if UI Test fails. If needed, we can also create a screenshot programmatically and include it in a Test Report with the help of the XCTAttachment class. In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a screenshot of a specific UI element as well as a screenshot of the entire app view.

Creating a Screenshot of a Single UI Element

To create a screenshot XCUIScreenshot of a specific UI element regardless of whether our test method has failed or not we can call the screenshot() method on a UI element. The below code snippet will create a screenshot of a single UITextField element that has an accessibility identifier firstName.

let firstNameTextFieldScreenshot = XCUIApplication().textFields["firstName"].screenshot()

To include XCUIScreenshot in a Test Report with a custom message, we will need to create an attachment.

let attachment = XCTAttachment(screenshot: firstNameTextFieldScreenshot)
    attachment.name = "First Name UITextField screenshot"
    attachment.lifetime = .keepAlways
    add(attachment)

Take a Screenshot of Current Device Screen

To create a screenshot of the current device screen you can use the XCUIScreen class.

let mainScreenScreenshot = XCUIScreen.main.screenshot()

or you can also use an object of XCUIApplication.

let mainScreenScreenshot = XCUIApplication().screenshot()

and then once you have a screenshot, you can add it to a Test Report. Below is a complete Swift code example.

let mainScreenScreenshot = XCUIScreen.main.screenshot()
let attachment = XCTAttachment(screenshot: mainScreenScreenshot)
attachment.name = "Signup Form Screenshot"
attachment.lifetime = .keepAlways
add(attachment)

Take a Screenshot of App’s First Window

You can also take a screenshot of the very first window of the app. To do that you will need to create an instance of XCUIApplication class, then refer to a list of windows, and then take a screenshot of the first window in the list.

 let app = XCUIApplication()
     app.launch()

let firstWindowScreenshot = app.windows.firstMatch.screenshot()

Once you have a screenshot, add it as an attachment to a test report.

Finding Screenshots in the Test Report

All automatically created screenshots 0r programmatically created attachments can be found in a Test Report. For example, the below image is a Test Report of a failed UI Test. When the UI Test fails the XCTest framework keeps on created screenshots. On the image below you can see that each step in a Test Report has an attachment included.

I hope this tutorial was of some help to you. If you are interested in a series of step-by-step video lessons that teach Unit testing and UI testing, have a look at this series.