Import Contacts In iOS

Contacts are We are going to use built in Contacts.framework to import all contacts in our app. To display a list of contacts, you must have access to the user’s address book. Apple does a great job of protecting the user’s privacy, so you can’t read any of their contacts’ data without asking the user for permission. Similar restrictions apply to access the user’s camera, location, photos, and more.

Whenever we need access to privacy-sensitive information, you are required to specify this in your app’s Info.plist file. This file keeps track of many of your app’s properties, such as its display name, supported interface orientations, and, in the case of accessing a user’s contacts, Info.plist also contains information about why you need access to the user’s contacts.

Let’s go step by step:-

• Add usage description in Info.plist file for contacts.

Open Plist file and click on plus button to add new row for contact usage description.

Add “Privacy – Contacts Usage Description“ in key

Select Type as String

Write the usage purpose of contacts in your app.

• Import Contacts Framework in your class.

import Contacts

•  Request for Contact permission

func getAuthStatus() -> CNAuthorizationStatus{

        

        return CNContactStore.authorizationStatus(for: .contacts)

    }

    

    func requestForAccess(_ completionHandler: @escaping (_ accessGrandted: Bool, _ authStatus: CNAuthorizationStatus) -> Void)  {

        

        let authorizationStatus = getAuthStatus()

        

        switch authorizationStatus {

        case .authorized:

            

            completionHandler(true, CNAuthorizationStatus.authorized)

            break

            

        case .notDetermined:

            let store = CNContactStore()

            store.requestAccess(for: .contacts, completionHandler: { (authorized: Bool, error: Error?) in

                

                if authorized {

                    completionHandler(true, CNAuthorizationStatus.authorized)

                }

                else {

                    

                    if self.getAuthStatus() == CNAuthorizationStatus.denied {

                        completionHandler(false, CNAuthorizationStatus.denied)

                    }

                }

            } )

            

            break

            

        case .denied :

            

            completionHandler(false, CNAuthorizationStatus.denied)

            

            break

            

        default:

            completionHandler(false, CNAuthorizationStatus.notDetermined)

            break

        }

    }

Above two function will check Contact authorisation status. If not determined it will show alert for contact permission. Keep in mind you can ask Contact permission only once. Once user denied you can just open Setting screen for enable Contact permission.

• Fetch Contact Using CNContactStore:-

do {

            let store = CNContactStore()

            var results = [CNContact]()

            let containers = try store.containers(matching: nil)

            for container in containers {

                let predicate = CNContact.predicateForContactsInContainer(withIdentifier: container.identifier)

      

                

                let keyToFetch = [CNContactIdentifierKey,

                                  CNContactFormatter.descriptorForRequiredKeys(for: .fullName),

                                  CNContactEmailAddressesKey,

                                  CNContactPhoneNumbersKey,

                                  

                                  CNContactPostalAddressesKey,

                                  CNContactNoteKey,

                                  CNContactOrganizationNameKey] as [Any]

                let contacts = try store.unifiedContacts(matching: predicate, keysToFetch: keyToFetch as! [CNKeyDescriptor])

                results.append(contentsOf: contacts)

            }

return results

            

        }

        catch

        {

            // print("Error1 is \(error)")

            

        }

We create a CNContactStore instance and this object is used to communicate directly with the Contacts system on iOS. In this method, we wrap our code in a do-catch statement because two of the methods we use are throwing methods.We can retrieve different values using different Keys like first name, last name, contact image, mobile number, address, emails etc. We then create an array that contains a number of constant keys. These keys directly relate to the information your app has access too.

There is different container Group in Native phonebook. We can retrieve Contacts from different Container according our need. Here we are retrieving contacts of all Groups using store.containers(matching: nil) and iterate it one by one to fetch contacts.

store.unifiedContacts will return array of CNContact which you can store in Your app data or in your app’s database and display contacts In your own tableview Format.

Important:-

In iOS 13, apple have added a new entitlement that is needed if you wish to access the notes for contacts. The entitlement is com.apple.developer.contacts.notes. You can request permission to use this entitlement for an app being put in the App Store.

The reason it was added is primarily for privacy reasons — the notes field can contain any information you might have on the contact; and a lot of times this information is significantly more sensitive than just the contact information.

Happy Coding.