Issue Report: Unable to Access User Contacts in FlutterFlow.

I am building an app using FlutterFlow with a paid subscription, and I need to fetch the user's phone contacts directly within the FlutterFlow environment.

FlutterFlow allows adding plugins like contacts_service or contacts_service_plus via the pubspec.yaml panel, and its documentation suggests that accessing device contacts is possible. Unfortunately, FlutterFlow does not provide any native support to access the device's contact list (such as via Android’s READ_CONTACTS permission). I cannot export the project or write custom code outside FlutterFlow — everything must be done within the visual builder.

To enable this, I added the following dependencies to the pubspec.yaml:

contacts_service: ^0.6.3
contacts_service_plus: ^0.6.3

Along with this, I have also confirmed that the necessary platform-specific configurations are present:

AndroidManifest.xml:

xml

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

iOS Info.plist:

xml

<key>NSContactsUsageDescription</key> <string>This app requires contact access to function properly.</string>

Despite all of this being correctly configured (as also reflected inside FlutterFlow’s pubspec and platform files), the platform still throws the following errors at build or runtime:

"Plugin or method does not exist"
"Incompatible type"
"URI does not support"
The plugin does not function on either Android or iOS, and cannot be called inside FlutterFlow's visual builder or custom actions.

Request:

Please provide native support inside FlutterFlow for:

Reading the user's phone contacts
Requesting contact permissions (READ_CONTACTS / NSContactsUsageDescription)
Binding the contact list to widgets using visual workflows

It is not possible for me to export and modify the project manually — this must work within FlutterFlow only.

This feature is crucial for apps that rely on social connection, contact-based invites, and user sync.

Please look into this issue and respond as soon as possible.

Kindly respond to this request as soon as possible.

Thank you!

I attempted to use the following dependencies:

contacts_service: ^0.6.3
contacts_service_plus: ^0.6.3

But both result in errors like “incompatible type” or “URI does not support”, and they are not supported inside FlutterFlow. These issues appear for both Android and iOS builds, and the plugins are effectively unusable in this environment.

// Automatic FlutterFlow imports
import '/backend/backend.dart';
import '/flutter_flow/flutter_flow_theme.dart';
import '/flutter_flow/flutter_flow_util.dart';
import '/custom_code/actions/index.dart'; // Imports other custom actions
import '/flutter_flow/custom_functions.dart'; // Imports custom functions
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
// Begin custom action code
// DO NOT REMOVE OR MODIFY THE CODE ABOVE!
import 'package:contacts_service_plus/contacts_service_plus.dart';
Future<List<String>?> getContacts() async {
  // Add your function code here!
  try{
  List<Contact> rawContacts = await ContactsService.getContacts();

    List<String> list = rawContacts.map((contact) {
      String name = contact.displayName ?? 'Unknown';
      String phone = (contact.phones?.isNotEmpty ?? false)
          ? contact.phones!.first.value ?? ''
          : '';
      return '$name: $phone';
    }).toList();
    return list;
  }catch(e){
    return null;
  }
}