Concepts

This document introduces the features of the Kakao Talk Social APIs.

Overview

Kakao Talk Social API provides the Kakao Talk profile and friend information of users registered to the service. Based on the provided Kakao Talk friend information, you can send Kakao Talk Message or build services where users are organically connected through Kakao Talk social relationships.

The Kakao Talk Social includes the following APIs:

API	Description
Retrieving Kakao Talk profile	Provides a user's profile information of Kakao Talk that is linked to the user's Kakao Account. Refer to Kakao Talk profile and Usage policy.
Retrieving friends through picker	Provides the user interface, called 'Friend picker' which a user can select Kakao Talk friends on, and provides the selected friends data. Refer to Friend picker and Usage policy.
Retrieving list of friends	Provides the Kakao Talk friends data for your service to leverage the friends data according to your service UI. Refer to Retrieving list of friends and Usage policy.

If you want to implement a function of sending messages to the Kakao Talk friends obtained through the Kakao Talk Social API in your service, you need to use the Kakao Talk Message API together. For more about the Kakao Talk Message APIs, refer to Concepts.

Kakao Talk profile

You can retrieve the Kakao Talk profile data of the currently logged-in user through the Retrieving Kakao Talk profile API.

If a user selects the 'Always keep it up to date' option in [Settings] > [Kakao Account] > [Manage MyInfo] > [Profile Update Settings] on the Kakao Talk application, the updated Kakao Talk profile is applied to the Kakao Account profile. Except for this case, the Kakao Talk profile data passed in response to the Retrieving Kakao Talk profile API is different from the Kakao Account's profile data. If you want to get a user's Kakao Account profile information, use the Retrieving user information API.

Retrieving list of friends

This API provides the list of a user's Kakao Talk friends. Unlike the Retrieving friends through picker API that displays the Friend picker, you must implement the user interface internally for the list of friends in your service.

Example of a user interface using the Kakao Talk friend data

Friend picker

The Friend picker is the user interface on which a user can select Kakao Talk friends. The Retrieving friends through picker API displays the Friend picker and provides the data of the friends whom a user selects. If you want to implement the Friend picker in your service and leverage the users' Kakao Talk social information, use the Kakao SDKs.

Features

The Friend picker provides a diverse user interface and the following features that you can implement for your service's needs.

• Displays the Friend picker and provides the friend's data that a user selects.
• Provides two types of display format:
  • Popup screen view
  • Full screen view (JavaScript SDK only provides the picker in full screen format.)
• Provides two selection types:
  • Multi-picker: Users can select multiple friends on the friends list.
  • Single picker: Users can select a single friend on the friends list.
• Supports multi-language:
  • Korean, English, Japanese

Selection type

Display format

Note that the JavaScript SDK only supports the full screen type of picker.

Usage policy

Request permission

To use the Friend Picker and the Retrieve list of friends API, the app requires permission. Apps without permission or test apps can only be used by the app's team members, and the response scope is also limited to those members. After acquiring the permission, the feature can be provided to all users in the actual service.

You can apply for the permissions through the process below.

1. Refer to Consent Items and set the consent item for [Friends List in Kakao Service(Including profile image, nickname, and favorites)(friends)].
2. Implement a social feature using the Friend Picker or the Retrieve list of friends API and test the request targeting the app's team members.
3. In [App] > [Request additional features] on the app management page, apply for the permission by attaching video or screenshot of the actual implementation.

After getting permission, the consent item for [Friends List in Kakao Service(Including profile image, nickname, and favorites)] can be set as [Optional consent]. However, note that the responses from both the Friend Picker and Retrieve list of friends API include only friend information that meets the Conditions for providing friends data.

Quota

Kakao API applies monthly and daily quotas for stable service. You can check the currently applied quota information in the Quota. To increase the applied quota limit, contact us as consultation and partnership are required.

Profile visibility option

The profile visibility option allows users to hide or show their profile on the Friends list of your service. If users select to hide their profiles on the Friends list of a service, they cannot receive any messages from their friends using the service.

How to check or change settings

Users can check or change the profile visibility settings by selecting [Preferences] at the bottom right of the message sent from their friends. If a user disables the 'Show my profile on Friends list' option on the Preference page, the user is not only displayed on the Friends list, but also the user's friends cannot send any message in the service.

[Preferences] is displayed only to the recipient’s message sent through the Kakao Talk Message API. Note that [Preferences] is not displayed on the following messages:

• Sender's message sent through the Kakao Talk Message API
• Messages sent through Kakao Talk Share API.

Users can also change the profile visibility settings by selecting [Agree] or [Withdraw] for the '[Optional] Show my profile on Friends list' access right. Users can allow or deny this access right in either way:

• [Use Your Account] > [Manage connected services] on the Kakao Account page
• [Settings] > [Kakao Account] > [Manage connected services] on the Kakao Talk application

If a user denies the access right, the user's profile is not displayed on the Friends list, and the user's friends cannot send any Kakao Talk messages through your service app.

Criteria for providing profile information

The response to the Retrieving list of friends API and the Friend picker is affected by multi-profile. The Multi-profile function enables the Kakao Talk users to set multiple profiles and show a different profile to each friend.

Kakao Talk profile information includes a user's nickname (nickName), a profile image URL (profileImageUrl), and a Kakao Talk profile thumbnail image URL (thumbnailUrl). When you call the Retrieving list of friends API or the Friend picker, the nickname and profile image URL are passed differently in the response with the given priorities.

For example, if user A requests to retrieve the list of A's friends, the nickname and profile image of user B (A's friend) are displayed with the following priorities:

• Nickname: B's name that A specified in A's Kakao Talk app > B's name that A saved in A's Contacts > B's nickname that B set it to visible to A out of multi-profiles > B's nickname that B set as a default
• Profile Image URL: B's profile image that B set it to visible to A out of multi-profiles > B's profile image that A set as a default

On the other hand, the multi-profile feature does not affect the response of Retrieve Kakao Talk profile API because the default profile information set by a user is used.

Conditions for providing friends data

You can obtain users' friends through either of the following APIs:

• Retrieving list of friends API
• Retrieving friends through picker API

These APIs are only allowed for apps with the given permission. To use these API, request permission.

The friends list retrieved through these APIs may not include all Kakao Talk friends information of the user, which means that the number of the friends displayed on the friends list may differ from the actual number of Kakao Talk friends.

When a user requests the list of friends, only the user's friends who meet all of the following conditions are displayed on the friends list:

• Friend must not be hidden nor blocked.
• Friend's Kakao Account must be linked to your service app.
• Friend must consent to the 'Friends List in Kakao Service(Including profile image, nickname, and favorites)' scope when linking to your service app.
• Friend must set the profile to public by selecting the 'Show my profile on Friends list' option. Refer to Profile visibility settings.

We do not provide an open API to give all Kakao Talk friends information of a user. Because the Kakao Talk friends data is private information, we strictly require consent for the user and each friend to provide their private information to a third-party. For this reason, the target of the Retrieving list of friends API and Retrieving friends through picker API is limited to the app users, not all of the Kakao Talk friends.

Response cache for Retrieving list of friends API

The Retrieving list of friends API refreshes the data every 10 minutes and returns cached responses within 10 minutes before the next API call. Once you request this API, you receive the same friends' list as the previous request within 10 minutes, even though some friend information changes. To receive the updated list of friends, you must make a request again 10 minutes later.

Provided APIs

• Refer to Scope of support to know whether each Kakao SDK supports each feature.

API	Description	Documentation
Retrieve Kakao Talk profile	Gets the Kakao Talk profile of the user currently logged in.	REST API JavaScript Android iOS Flutter
Retrieve friends through picker	Displays the Friend picker and provides the information of the Kakao Talk friends that a user selects through the picker..	JavaScript Android iOS Flutter
Retrieve list of friends	Gets the friends added in Kakao Talk account linked to the Kakao Account of the user currently logged in..	REST API JavaScript Android iOS Flutter