Insert contacts

This library provides the Insert API that allows you to insert one or more RawContacts and Data.

An instance of the Insert API is obtained by,

val insert = Contacts(context).insert()

ℹ️ If you want to create/insert the device owner Contact Profile, read Insert device owner Contact profile.

ℹ️ If you want to insert Data into a new or existing contact, read Insert data into new or existing contacts.

A basic insert

To create/insert a contact with a name of "John Doe" who works at Amazon with a work email of "john.doe@amazon.com" (in Kotlin),

val insertResult = Contacts(context)
    .insert()
    .rawContacts(NewRawContact().apply {
        name = NewName().apply {
            givenName = "John"
            familyName = "Doe"
        }
        organization = NewOrganization().apply {
            company = "Amazon"
            title = "Superstar"
        }
        emails.add(NewEmail().apply {
            address = "john.doe@amazon.com"
            type = EmailEntity.Type.WORK
        })
    })
    .commit()

Or alternatively, in a more Kotlinized style using named arguments,

val insertResult = Contacts(context)
    .insert()
    .rawContacts(NewRawContact(
        name = NewName(
            givenName = "John",
            familyName = "Doe"
        ),
        organization = NewOrganization(
            company = "Amazon",
            title = "Superstar"
        ),
        emails = mutableListOf(NewEmail(
            address = "john.doe@amazon.com",
            type = EmailEntity.Type.WORK
        ))
    ))
    .commit()

Or alternatively, using extension functions,

val insertResult = Contacts(context)
    .insert()
    .rawContact {
        setName {
            givenName = "John"
            familyName = "Doe"
        }
        setOrganization {
            company = "Amazon"
            title = "Superstar"
        }
        addEmail {
            address = "john.doe@amazon.com"
            type = EmailEntity.Type.WORK
        }
    }
    .commit()

Allowing blanks

The API allows you to specify if you want to be able to insert blank contacts or not,

.allowBlanks(true|false)

For more info, read about Blank contacts.

ℹ️ This may affect performance. When this is set to false, the API executes extra lines of code to perform the validation, which may result in a slight performance hit. You can disable this internal check, perhaps increasing insertion speed, by setting this to true.

Blank data are not inserted

Blank data are data entities that have only null, empty, or blank primary value(s). Blanks are ignored and are not inserted by insert APIs.

For more info, read about Blank data.

Associating an Account

New RawContacts can be associated with an Account in order to enable syncing,

newRawContact.account = account
// or newRawContact.setAccount(account)

ℹ️ Prior to version 0.3.0, setting the account is done via the Insert.forAccount function.

For example, to associated the new RawContact to an account,

newRawContact.account = Account("john.doe@gmail.com", "com.google")
// or newRawContact.setAccount(Account("john.doe@gmail.com", "com.google"))

ℹ️ For more info, read Query for Accounts.

Account validation

By default, all Accounts in the system are queried in order to ensure that each NewRawContact.account is in the system. For Accounts that are not in the system, null is used instead. This guards against invalid accounts.

You may explicitly enable or disable this,

.validateAccounts(true|false)

ℹ️ This may affect performance. When this is set to true, the API executes extra lines of code to perform the validation, which may result in a slight performance hit. You can disable this internal check, perhaps increasing insertion speed, by setting this to false.

Group memberships validation

By default, all Groups belonging to the NewRawContact.account are queried to ensure that each NewRawContact.groupMemberships points to a Group in that list. Group memberships that are not pointing to a group that belong to the NewRawContact.account are not inserted. This guards against invalid accounts.

You may explicitly enable or disable this,

.validateGroupMemberships(true|false)

ℹ️ This may affect performance. When this is set to true, the API executes extra lines of code to perform the validation, which may result in a slight performance hit. You can disable this internal check, perhaps increasing insertion speed, by setting this to false.

Local RawContacts

If no Account is provided, or null is provided, or if an incorrect account is provided, the RawContacts inserted will not be associated with an Account. RawContacts inserted without an associated account are considered local or device-only contacts, which are not synced.

ℹ️ For more info, read Sync contact data across devices.

Including only specific data

To include only the given set of fields (data) in each of the insert operation,

.include(fields)

For example, to only include email and name fields,

.include { Email.all + Name.all }

For more info, read Include only certain fields for read and write operations.

Executing the insert

To execute the insert,

.commit()

To execute the most optimal (fastest) insert for large amounts of RawContacts,

.commitInChunks()

commitInChunks vs commit

When inserting just one NewRawContact, the commitInChunks function behaves and performs identically to commit.

When inserting more than one NewRawContact, the commitInChunks function is faster than commit. This performance improvement is negligible for small amounts of RawContacts (e.g. 5, 10, 20,...) BUT is very noticeable for much larger amounts (e.g. 500, 1000, 5000, ...) by a magnitude of 3x to 5x or even, more depending on the amount of RawContacts and the amount of data each one holds.

A caveat to using commitInChunks is that failure to insert one RawContact may result in failure to insert one or more other RawContacts that happen to be in inserted in the same "chunk" (or batch). Using commit does not have this caveat. By using commit, each RawContact is inserted separately, guaranteeing that an error in the insertion of one RawContact does not affect another.

It is recommended to use commit when inserting a few RawContacts. When inserting several hundreds or thousands of RawContacts, then you should probably use commitInChunks if you want to optimize for speed over "correctness".

ℹ️ For more insights, join the discussion; https://github.com/vestrel00/contacts-android/discussions/317

Handling the insert result

The commit function returns a Result,

val contactsApi = Contacts(context)
val newRawContact1 = NewRawContact(...)
val newRawContact2 = NewRawContact(...)

val insertResult = contactsApi
    .insert()
    .rawContacts(newRawContact1, newRawContact2)
    .commit()

To check if all inserts succeeded,

val allInsertsSuccessful = insertResult.isSuccessful

To check if a particular insert succeeded,

val firstInsertSuccessful = insertResult.isSuccessful(newRawContact1)

To get the RawContact IDs of all the newly created RawContacts,

val allRawContactIds = insertResult.rawContactIds

To get the RawContact ID of a particular RawContact,

val secondRawContactId = insertResult.rawContactId(newRawContact2)

Once you have the RawContact IDs, you can retrieve the newly created Contacts via the Query API,

val contacts = contactsApi
    .query()
    .where { RawContact.Id `in` allRawContactIds }
    .find()

ℹ️ For more info, read Query contacts (advanced).

Alternatively, you may use the extensions provided in InsertResult. To get all newly created Contacts,

val contacts = insertResult.contacts(contactsApi)

To get a particular contact,

val contact = insertResult.contact(contactsApi, newRawContact1)

To instead get the RawContacts directly,

val rawContacts = insertResult.rawContacts(contactsApi)

To get a particular RawContact,

val rawContact = insertResult.rawContact(contactsApi, newRawContact2)

Cancelling the insert

To cancel an insert amid execution,

.commit { returnTrueIfInsertShouldBeCancelled() }

The commit function optionally takes in a function that, if it returns true, will cancel insert processing as soon as possible. The function is called numerous times during insert processing to check if processing should stop or continue. This gives you the option to cancel the insert.

For example, to automatically cancel the insert inside a Kotlin coroutine when the coroutine is cancelled,

launch {
    withContext(coroutineContext) {
        val insertResult = insert.commit { !isActive }
    }
}

Performing the insert and result processing asynchronously

Inserts are executed when the commit function is invoked. The work is done in the same thread as the call-site. This may result in a choppy UI.

To perform the work in a different thread, use the Kotlin coroutine extensions provided in the async module. For more info, read Execute work outside of the UI thread using coroutines.

You may, of course, use other multi-threading libraries or just do it yourself =)

ℹ️ Extensions for Kotlin Flow and RxJava are also in the project roadmap.

Performing the insert with permission

Inserts require the android.permission.WRITE_CONTACTS and android.permission.GET_ACCOUNTS permissions. If not granted, the insert will do nothing and return a failed result.

To perform the insert with permission, use the extensions provided in the permissions module. For more info, read Permissions handling using coroutines.

You may, of course, use other permission handling libraries or just do it yourself =)

Custom data support

The Insert API supports custom data. For more info, read Insert custom data into new or existing contacts.

RawContact and Contacts aggregation

As per documentation in android.provider.ContactsContract.Contacts,

A Contact cannot be created explicitly. When a raw contact is inserted, the provider will first try to find a Contact representing the same person. If one is found, the raw contact's RawContacts#CONTACT_ID column gets the _ID of the aggregate Contact. If no match is found, the provider automatically inserts a new Contact and puts its _ID into the RawContacts#CONTACT_ID column of the newly inserted raw contact.

Insert a new RawContact with data of every kind

Unless you are allowing blanks, you only need to provide at least one data kind when inserting a new contact in order for the operation to succeed.

If you want to provide data of every kind, which is useful when implementing a contact creation screen,

val accountToAddContactTo = Account("vestrel00@pixar.com", "com.pixar")

val insertResult = Contacts(context)
    .insert()
    .rawContact {
        setAccount(accountToAddContactTo)
        setName {
            givenName = "Buzz"
            familyName = "Lightyear"
        }
        setNickname {
            name = "Buzz"
        }
        setOrganization {
            title = "Space Toy"
            company = "Pixar"
        }
        addPhone {
            number = "(555) 555-5555"
            type = PhoneEntity.Type.CUSTOM
            label = "Fake Number"
        }
        setSipAddress {
            sipAddress = "sip:buzz.lightyear@pixar.com"
        }
        addEmail {
            address = "buzz.lightyear@pixar.com"
            type = EmailEntity.Type.WORK
        }
        addEmail {
            address = "buzz@lightyear.net"
            type = EmailEntity.Type.HOME
        }
        addAddress {
            formattedAddress = "1200 Park Ave"
            type = AddressEntity.Type.WORK
        }
        addIm {
            data = "buzzlightyear@skype.com"
            protocol = ImEntity.Protocol.SKYPE
        }
        addWebsite {
            url = "https://www.pixar.com"
        }
        addWebsite {
            url = "https://www.disney.com"
        }
        addEvent {
            date = EventDate.from(year = 1995, month = 10, dayOfMonth = 22)
            type = EventEntity.Type.BIRTHDAY
        }
        addRelation {
            name = "Childhood friend"
            type = RelationEntity.Type.CUSTOM
            label = "Imaginary Friend"
        }
        groupMemberships.addAll(
            contactsApi
                .groups()
                .query()
                .accounts(accountToAddContactTo)
                .where { Title contains "friend"}
                .find()
                .newMemberships()
        )
        setNote {
            note = "The best toy in the world!"
        }
    }
    .commit()

Inserting photos and thumbnails

To set full-sized photos (and by API design thumbnails), read Get set remove full-sized and thumbnail contact photos.