kakao developers

Understand concepts

This document introduces the features of Kakao Talk Social API.

Overview

The Kakao Talk Social API provides data of Kakao Talk friends, including basic information and profiles of Kakao Talk friends in a list format. You can use the data to implement the Kakao Talk social function in your service in various other ways.

The Kakao Talk Social API also provides a user's profile information of Kakao Talk that is connected to the user's Kakao Account through the Retrieving Kakao Talk profile API. The Kakao Talk profile information passed in response to the Retrieving Kakao Talk profile API is different from the Kakao Account's profile information. If you want to get a user's Kakao Account profile information, use the Retrieving user information API. If a user selects the 'Always keep it up to date' option in Settings > Privacy > Kakao Account > Manage MyInfo > Profile Update Settings on the Kakao Talk application or Kakao Account page, the Kakao Account profile information of the currently logged-in user can be same as the user's Kakao Talk profile information.

This API offers more features to broaden the social media function in your service by providing user profiles and friends in the Kakao Talk friends list in the form of your service UI. You can also combine the data with service user information to implement more powerful social media functions, such as sharing user activities with friends.

To implement the feature of sending messages to Kakao Talk friends in your service, you must use the Kakao Talk Social API with the Kakao Talk messaging API together. You can retrieve the list of friends through the Retrieving list of friends API, and send Kakao Talk messages to the obtained friends through the Messaging API.

Example of service UI using the Kakao Talk friend information.

Usage policy

Conditions for providing friend information

You can use the Retrieving list of friends API API only from the apps with the given permission. Thus, you must request permission to use this API.

The friends list retrieved through the Retrieving list of friends API may not include all Kakao Talk friends information of the user, which means that the number of the friends passed in the response 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 the following conditions are passed in the response. Here are the conditions to provide the friends' information:

• The user's friends must not be hidden or blocked.
• Both the user and the friends' Kakao Accounts must be linked to your service app.
• Both the user and the friends must have agreed to provide the Friends List in Kakao Service(Including profile image, nickname, and favorites) when linking their account to your service app.
• The user's friends must set the profile to public by selecting the 'Show my profile on Friends list' option. Refer to Profile visibility settings.

If a specific friend is not passed in the response, refer to FAQ.

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

The Retrieving list of friends API refreshes the data every 10 minutes and returns cached responses. 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.

Profile visibility option

The profile visibility option allows users to hide or show their profile on the list of Friends of your service. If users select to hide their profiles on the Friends list of a service, they also 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 a message in the service.

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

• Sender's message sent through the Kakao Talk messaging API
• Messages shared through Kakao Link.

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
• [General Settings] > [Privacy] > [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 is affected by multi-profile. Multi-profile is a new feature that allows Kakao Talk users to set different profiles for 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, 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 since the default profile information set by a user is used.

Send Kakao Talk message

Users can send a Kakao Talk message to the friends obtained through the Retrieving list of friends API. Refer to Message for more details.

Scope of support

API	Android SDK	iOS SDK	JavaScript SDK	Flutter SDK	REST API
Retrieving Kakao Talk profile	●	●	●	●	●
Retrieving list of friends	●	●	●	●	●