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contact: delta

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Namespace: microsoft.graph

Important

APIs under the /beta version in Microsoft Graph are subject to change. Use of these APIs in production applications is not supported. To determine whether an API is available in v1.0, use the Version selector.

Get a set of contacts that have been added, deleted, or updated in a specified folder.

A delta function call for contacts in a folder is similar to a GET request, except that by appropriately applying state tokens in one or more of these calls, you can query for incremental changes in the contacts in that folder. This allows you to maintain and synchronize a local store of a user's contacts without having to fetch the entire set of contacts from the server every time.

This API is available in the following national cloud deployments.

Global service US Government L4 US Government L5 (DOD) China operated by 21Vianet
✅ ✅ ✅ ✅

Permissions

Choose the permission or permissions marked as least privileged for this API. Use a higher privileged permission or permissions only if your app requires it. For details about delegated and application permissions, see Permission types. To learn more about these permissions, see the permissions reference.

Permission type Least privileged permissions Higher privileged permissions
Delegated (work or school account) Contacts.Read Contacts.ReadWrite
Delegated (personal Microsoft account) Contacts.Read Contacts.ReadWrite
Application Contacts.Read Contacts.ReadWrite

HTTP request

GET /me/contactFolders/{id}/contacts/delta
GET /users/{id}/contactFolders/{id}/contacts/delta

Query parameters

Tracking changes in contacts incurs a round of one or more delta function calls. If you use any query parameter (other than $deltatoken and $skiptoken), you must specify it in the initial delta request. Microsoft Graph automatically encodes any specified parameters into the token portion of the @odata.nextLink or @odata.deltaLink URL provided in the response. You only need to specify any desired query parameters once upfront. In subsequent requests, simply copy and apply the @odata.nextLink or @odata.deltaLink URL from the previous response, as that URL already includes the encoded, desired parameters.

Query parameter Type Description
$deltatoken string A state token returned in the @odata.deltaLink URL of the previous delta function call for the same contact collection, indicating the completion of that round of change tracking. Save and apply the entire @odata.deltaLink URL including this token in the first request of the next round of change tracking for that collection.
$skiptoken string A state token returned in the @odata.nextLink URL of the previous delta function call, indicating there are further changes to be tracked in the same contact collection.

OData query parameters

  • You can use a $select query parameter as in any GET request to specify only the properties your need for best performance. The id property is always returned.

Request headers

Name Type Description
Authorization string Bearer {token}. Required. Learn more about authentication and authorization.
Content-Type string application/json. Required.
Prefer string odata.maxpagesize={x}. Optional.

Response

If successful, this method returns a 200 OK response code and contact collection object in the response body.

Example

Request

The following example shows how to make a single delta function call, use the $select parameter to get only each contact's displayName property, and limit the maximum number of contacts in the response body to 2.

To track changes in the contacts in a folder, you would make one or more delta function calls, with appropriate state tokens, to get the set of incremental changes since the last delta query.

You can find a similar example that shows how to use the state tokens to track changes in the messages of a mail folder: Get incremental changes to messages in a folder. The main differences between tracking contacts and tracking messages in a folder are in the delta query request URLs, and the query responses returning contact rather than message collections.

GET https://graph.microsoft.com/beta/me/contactFolders/{id}/contacts/delta?$select=displayName

Prefer: odata.maxpagesize=2
Response

If the request is successful, the response would include a state token, which is either a skipToken
(in an @odata.nextLink response header) or a deltaToken (in an @odata.deltaLink response header). Respectively, they indicate whether you should continue with the round or you have completed getting all the changes for that round.

The response below shows a skipToken in an @odata.nextLink response header.

Note: The response object shown here might be shortened for readability.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-type: application/json

{
  "@odata.nextLink":"https://graph.microsoft.com/beta/me/contactfolders/{id}/contacts/delta?$skiptoken={_skipToken_}",
  "value": [
    {
      "parentFolderId": "parentFolderId-value",
      "birthday": "2016-10-19T10:37:00Z",
      "fileAs": "fileAs-value",
      "displayName": "displayName-value",
      "givenName": "givenName-value",
      "initials": "initials-value"
    }
  ]
}

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