system_contact_picker

Native Flutter contact picker for Android and iOS.

Platform behavior

Platform	Picker	Permission behavior	Multiple selection
Android API 37+	Android 17 system Contact Picker	No `READ_CONTACTS` runtime permission	Supported, limit 1-100
Android API 36 and below	Legacy `Intent.ACTION_PICK` Contacts picker	Runtime `READ_CONTACTS`, manifest scoped with `maxSdkVersion="36"`	Falls back to one contact
iOS 13+	`CNContactPickerViewController`	Add `NSContactsUsageDescription` to the host app	Supported by ContactsUI, limit applied after selection

Android 17 returns a session URI and the plugin immediately queries that URI for the requested fields. Legacy Android resolves the selected contact and queries ContactsContract.Data after READ_CONTACTS is granted.

Usage

import 'package:system_contact_picker/system_contact_picker.dart';

const picker = SystemContactPicker();

final contact = await picker.pickContact(
  fields: const {ContactField.phone, ContactField.email},
);

final contacts = await picker.pickContacts(
  fields: const {ContactField.phone, ContactField.email},
  allowMultiple: true,
  limit: 5,
  matchAllFields: false,
);

The plugin returns normalized PickedContact models:

for (final contact in contacts) {
  print(contact.displayName);
  for (final phone in contact.phones) {
    print('${phone.label}: ${phone.value}');
  }
  for (final email in contact.emails) {
    print('${email.label}: ${email.value}');
  }
}

Fields

Supported request fields:

ContactField.name
ContactField.phone
ContactField.email
ContactField.postalAddress
ContactField.organization
ContactField.relation
ContactField.event
ContactField.photo
ContactField.website
ContactField.nickname

Default fields are phone and email.

Capabilities

Use getCapabilities() when the UI needs to adapt to platform limits.

final capabilities = await picker.getCapabilities();

if (!capabilities.supportsMultiple) {
  // Android API 36 and below can only return one contact.
}

Android setup

No host-app manifest change is required for the package permission. The plugin manifest includes:

<uses-permission
    android:name="android.permission.READ_CONTACTS"
    android:maxSdkVersion="36" />

That keeps the broad contacts permission away from Android 17+ while preserving the legacy picker path on older devices.

The Android 17 constants are used as documented string values so the plugin can compile on Flutter/Android SDK installations that have not installed API 37 yet.

iOS setup

Add a contacts usage description to the host app's ios/Runner/Info.plist:

<key>NSContactsUsageDescription</key>
<string>Select contacts to share with this app.</string>

The picker uses Apple's sandboxed ContactsUI flow and does not call the broad Contacts authorization prompt before presenting the picker.

References

Android Contact Picker guide: https://developer.android.com/about/versions/17/features/contact-picker
Android ContactsPickerSessionContract: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/ContactsPickerSessionContract
Android Intent.EXTRA_USE_SYSTEM_CONTACTS_PICKER: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Intent#EXTRA_USE_SYSTEM_CONTACTS_PICKER
iOS CNContactPickerViewController: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contactsui/cncontactpickerviewcontroller