How to remove bitcode from a framework

When trying to upload your app to App Store Connect using Xcode 16, you may encounter the following error :

🛑 Asset validation failed

Invalid Executable. The executable 'YourApp.app/Frameworks/Foobar.framework/Foobar' contains bitcode.

Indeed, Xcode 15 Release note was already mentioning that bitcode was not supported anymore :

Deprecations

Bitcode support has been removed, and the ENABLE_BITCODE build setting no longer has any effect.

Thus, in order to be able to submit your new app version to Apple while still depending on the Foobar framework, you can use the dedicated xcrun subcommand named bitcode_strip :

xcrun bitcode_strip -r Foobar.framework/Foobar -o Foobar.framework/Foobar

According to man bitcode_strip, the -r option removes the __LLVM bitcode segment entirely, which is exactly what you want, and -o specifies the output file.

Now, let's say Foobar.xcframework is a third party dependency and you retrieve it via cocoapods, you may then want to add the following to your Podfile to remove bitcode after the dependency is installed :

post_install do |installer|
  project = installer.pods_project
  # ⚠️ paths may vary from a project to another
  $work_path = "#{project.path}/.."
  project.pods.children.each do |pod|
    # Target Foobar's pod
    if pod.name == 'Foobar'
      $xcframework_path = "#{$work_path}/#{pod.path}/Foobar.xcframework"
      # Iterate over every framework slice of the xcframework
      Dir.glob("#{$xcframework_path}/*/Foobar.framework").each do |framework|
        # Strip bitcode
        %x(xcrun bitcode_strip -r #{framework}/Foobar -o #{framework}/Foobar)
      end
    end
  end
end