Create a Flutter IOS build without Mac

Ezaldeen sahb
3 min readJul 27, 2020

If you don’t have access to a MacOS system, but still want to see your flutter app on an IOS device without using paid services or virtual machines then this article is for you.

IOS build without MacOS

We will use FlutLab.io it’s an “FREE” online IDE for Flutter. And probably this is the fastest way to play with your first Flutter projects without any installation process or Flutter SDK setup on your computer.

How does it work ?

Go to FlutLab.io and register a free account, then go to your profile you will see this window

Profile page in flutlab.io

Click on Upload zip to upload your project, your project should be in a zip format, also don’t forget to run flutter clean before you convert your project to zip file.

after upload is done click on your project to be opened in a new page.

Choose Build Type

Now you click on Preferences as shown in the picture below

Preferences page

and from build window choose ios-debug Build

IOS builder

Now click on build and wait for your build to be finished.

IOS build is running

Now your IOS app bundle is ready to be downloaded !!

Run the IOS-App

appetize.io is an Online service that gives you a web based iOS Simulators and Android Emulators.

Go to appetize.io and choose you zip file that you downloaded from FlutLab.io and upload it to the site, after the upload is done, enter you Email and a link will be sent to you Email.

upload your app-bundle to appetize.io

Now go to your email and click on the link that has been sent to you

ios flutter build

Now you can test your Flutter app on an IOS Emulator.

Update 3/24/2021

Many people are asking if this method can help them in big projects, please note that some projects needs some configuration on xcode to allow some features on native iOS devices.

Currently I am trying several mac in cloud rent and I will share my experience here with you after I find the cheapest prices & best performance.

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Ezaldeen sahb

Hi, I am an R&D Eng. Interested in Android application, flutter and machine learning. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ezaldeen-sahb-17918b137