How to access contacts from the address book

Thomas Steiner

Sometimes you want to let users of your app select one of their contacts to message via an email or chat application, or help them discover which of their contacts have already joined a social platform.

The modern way

Using the Contact Picker API

To get contacts from the address book, you need to use the Contact Picker API, which allows users to select entries from their contact list and share limited details of the selected entries with your app. Several properties like name, email, tel, address, and icon are available. To find out about the concretely supported properties, call navigator.contacts.getProperties(). To allow the user to select multiple contacts, pass {multiple: true} as the second parameter of navigator.contacts.select().

Browser Support

Source

The Contact Picker API is available in the Android version of Chrome from version 80.

The classic way

Using a regular form

The fallback method is to use a regular form that lets the user enter the contact's details.

Browser Support

Source

Progressive enhancement

If the Contact Picker API is supported, hide the static form fields and show a picker button instead.

const button = document.querySelector('button');
const name = document.querySelector('.name');
const address = document.querySelector('.address');
const email = document.querySelector('.email');
const tel = document.querySelector('.tel');
const pre = document.querySelector('pre');
const autofills = document.querySelectorAll('.autofill');

if ('contacts' in navigator) {
  button.hidden = false;
  for (const autofill of autofills) {
    autofill.parentElement.style.display = 'none';
  }
  address.parentElement.style.display = 'block';
  button.addEventListener('click', async () => {
    const props = ['name', 'email', 'tel', 'address'];
    const opts = { multiple: false };
    try {
      const [contact] = await navigator.contacts.select(props, opts);
      name.value = contact.name;
      address.value = contact.address;
      tel.value = contact.tel;
      email.value = contact.email;
    } catch (err) {
      pre.textContent = `${err.name}: ${err.message}`;
    }
  });
}

Demo

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />
    <link
      rel="icon"
      href="data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns=%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22 viewBox=%220 0 100 100%22><text y=%22.9em%22 font-size=%2290%22>🎉</text></svg>"
    />
    <title>How to access contacts from the address book</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>How to access contacts from the address book</h1>

    <p>Ship your order as a present to a friend.</p>
    <button hidden type="button">Open address book</button>
    <pre></pre>

    <label> Name <input class="name" autocomplete="name"></label>

    <label hidden>Address <input class="address" required></label>

    <label>Street <input class="autofill" autocomplete="address-line1" required></label>

    <label>City <input class="autofill" autocomplete="address-level2" required></label>

    <label>State / Province / Region (optional) <input class="autofill" autocomplete="address-level1"></label>

    <label>ZIP / Postal code (optional) <input class="autofill" autocomplete="postal-code"></label>

    <label>Country <input class="autofill" autocomplete="country"></label>

    <label>Email<input class="email" autocomplete="email"></label>

    <label>Telephone<input class="tel" autocomplete="tel"></label>
  </body>
</html>

CSS


        html {
  box-sizing: border-box;
  font-family: system-ui, sans-serif;
  color-scheme: dark light;
}

*, *:before, *:after {
  box-sizing: inherit;
}

body {
  margin: 1rem;
}

input {
  display: block;
  margin-block-end: 1rem;
}

JS


        const button = document.querySelector('button');
const name = document.querySelector('.name')
const address = document.querySelector('.address')
const email = document.querySelector('.email')
const tel = document.querySelector('.tel')
const pre = document.querySelector('pre')
const autofills = document.querySelectorAll('.autofill')

if ('contacts' in navigator) {
  button.hidden = false;
  for (const autofill of autofills) {
    autofill.parentElement.style.display = 'none'
  }
  address.parentElement.style.display = 'block';
  button.addEventListener('click', async () => {
    const props = ['name', 'email', 'tel', 'address'];
    const opts = {multiple: false};
    try {
      const [contact] = await navigator.contacts.select(props, opts);
      name.value = contact.name;
      address.value = contact.address;
      tel.value = contact.tel
      email.value = contact.email;
    } catch (err) {
      pre.textContent = `${err.name}: ${err.message}`
    }
  });
}