Users

Learn how to manage your users with QuickBlox.

Visit our Key Concepts page to get an overall understanding of the most important QuickBlox concepts.

Before you begin

  1. Register a QuickBlox account. This is a matter of a few minutes and you will be able to use this account to build your apps.
  2. Configure QuickBlox SDK for your app. Check out our Setup page for more details.
  3. Create a user session to be able to use QuickBlox functionality. See our Authentication page to learn how to do it.

Create user

It's recommended to manage user creation at your backend for production. To learn more you can refer to QuickBlox API documentation.

For POCs/MVPs or during development you may want to create users on the fly, you can use signUp() method.

Create a user using the code snippet below. Only login (or email) and password are required. Other fields are optional.

let user = QBUUser()
user.login = "myLogin"
user.fullName = "myFullName"
user.password = "myPassword"

QBRequest.signUp(user, successBlock: { (response, user) in

}, errorBlock: { (response) in

})
QBUUser *user = [[QBUUser alloc] init];
user.login = @"myLogin";
user.fullName = @"myFullName";
user.password = @"myPassword";

[QBRequest signUp:user successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBUUser * _Nonnull user) {
        
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {

}];

🚧

Security & Privacy

It's recommended to disable permission to create users with application session on production apps once user creation is implemented on your backend.

Email, full name, facebookId and phone number are PII, configure session permissions according to your privacy requirements.

Retrieve users

Get a list of users using the users(withExtendedRequest:page:) method. The code snippet below shows how to get a list of users created between the two given dates and sorted in descending order.

let field = "created_at"
let typeField = "date"
let sortDesc = "desc"
let sortAsc = "asc"
let paramSort = "order"
let paramFilter = "filter[]"
let searchOperator = "between"
let searchValue = "2021-01-01, 2021-05-06"

var extendedRequest: [String: String] = [:]
extendedRequest[paramSort] = sortDesc + " " + typeField + " " + field
extendedRequest[paramFilter] = typeField + " " + field + " " + searchOperator + " " + searchValue
let page = QBGeneralResponsePage(currentPage: 1, perPage: 100)

QBRequest.users(withExtendedRequest: extendedRequest, page: page, successBlock: { (response, page, users) in
    
}, errorBlock: { response in
    
})
NSString *field = @"created_at";
NSString *typeField = @"date";
NSString *sortDesc = @"desc";
NSString *sortAsc = @"asc";
NSString *paramSort = @"order";
NSString *paramFilter = @"filter[]";
NSString *searchOperator = @"between";
NSString *searchValue = @"2021-01-01, 2021-05-06";

NSMutableDictionary *extendedRequest = [NSMutableDictionary dictionary];
extendedRequest[paramSort] =  [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ %@ %@", sortDesc, typeField, field];
extendedRequest[paramFilter] =  [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ %@ %@ %@", typeField, field, searchOperator, searchValue];

QBGeneralResponsePage *page = [QBGeneralResponsePage responsePageWithCurrentPage:1 perPage:10];

[QBRequest usersWithExtendedRequest:extendedRequest.copy page:page successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBGeneralResponsePage * _Nonnull page, NSArray<QBUUser *> * _Nonnull users) {
    
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
    
}];
ArgumentRequiredDescription
extendedRequestyesA dictionary that stores keys and values of the String type.
pagenoIf you want to get a paginated list of users from the server, you can set the following fields of the page:
- currentpage is a number of pages with results to be returned.
- perPage is a number of records to return in one page.

If you want to retrieve only users updated after some specific date time, you can use operators. This is useful if you cache users somehow and do not want to obtain the whole list of users on every app start. Thus, you can use search and sort operators to list users on the page so that it is easier to see specific users.

Search operators

You can use search operators to get more specific search results. The request below will return a list of users created between the two given dates.

let field = "created_at"
let typeField = "date"
let paramFilter = "filter[]"
let searchOperator = "between"
let searchValue = "2021-01-01, 2021-05-06"

var extendedRequest: [String: String] = [:]
extendedRequest[paramFilter] = typeField + " " + field + " " + searchOperator + " " + searchValue
let page = QBGeneralResponsePage(currentPage: 1, perPage: 100)

QBRequest.users(withExtendedRequest: extendedRequest, page: page, successBlock: { (response, page, users) in

}, errorBlock: { response in
    
})
NSString *field = @"created_at";
NSString *typeField = @"date";
NSString *paramFilter = @"filter[]";
NSString *searchOperator = @"between";
NSString *searchValue = @"2021-01-01, 2021-05-06";

NSMutableDictionary *extendedRequest = [NSMutableDictionary dictionary];
extendedRequest[paramFilter] =  [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ %@ %@ %@", typeField, field, searchOperator, searchValue];

QBGeneralResponsePage *page = [QBGeneralResponsePage responsePageWithCurrentPage:1 perPage:10];

[QBRequest usersWithExtendedRequest:extendedRequest.copy page:page successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBGeneralResponsePage * _Nonnull page, NSArray<QBUUser *> * _Nonnull users) {
    
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
    
}];

Here are the search operators that you can use to search for the exact data that you need.

Search operatorsApplicable to typesApplicable to fieldsDescription
ltnumber, string, dateid, created_at, updated_at, last_request_at, external_user_id, facebook_idLess Than operator.
gtnumber, string, dateid, created_at, updated_at, last_request_at, external_user_id, facebook_idGreater Than operator.
gtenumber, string, dateid, created_at, updated_at, last_request_at, external_user_id, facebook_idGreater Than or Equal to operator.
lenumber, string, dateid, created_at, updated_at, last_request_at, external_user_id, facebook_idLess or Equal to operator
eqnumber, string, dateid, full_name, email, login, phone, created_at, updated_at, last_request_at, external_user_id, facebook_idEqual to operator.
nenumber, string, dateid, full_name, email, login, phone, created_at, updated_at, last_request_at, external_user_id, facebook_idNot Equal to operator.
betweennumber, string, dateid, created_at, updated_at, last_request_at, external_user_id, facebook_idContained between values operator.
innumber, string, dateid, full_name, email, login, phone, created_at, updated_at, last_request_at, external_user_id, facebook_idIN array operator.

Sort operators

You can use sort operators to order the search results. The request below will return a list of users sorted in descending order by the created_at field.

let field = "created_at"
let typeField = "date"
let sortDesc = "desc"
let sortAsc = "asc"
let paramSort = "order"

var extendedRequest: [String: String] = [:]
extendedRequest[paramSort] = sortDesc + " " + typeField + " " + field
let page = QBGeneralResponsePage(currentPage: 1, perPage: 100)

QBRequest.users(withExtendedRequest: extendedRequest, page: page, successBlock: { (response, page, users) in
    
}, errorBlock: { response in
    
})
NSString *field = @"created_at";
NSString *typeField = @"date";
NSString *sortDesc = @"desc";
NSString *sortAsc = @"asc";
NSString *paramSort = @"order";

NSMutableDictionary *extendedRequest = [NSMutableDictionary dictionary];
extendedRequest[paramSort] =  [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ %@ %@", sortDesc, typeField, field];

QBGeneralResponsePage *page = [QBGeneralResponsePage responsePageWithCurrentPage:1 perPage:10];

[QBRequest usersWithExtendedRequest:extendedRequest.copy page:page successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBGeneralResponsePage * _Nonnull page, NSArray<QBUUser *> * _Nonnull users) {
    
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
    
}];

Here are the sort operators you can use to order the search results.

Sort operatorApplicable to typesApplicable to fieldsDescription
ascAll typesid, full_name, email, login, phone, website, created_at, updated_at,
last_request_at, external_user_id
Search results will be sorted in ascending order by the specified field.
descAll typesid, full_name, email, login, phone, website, created_at, updated_at,
last_request_at, external_user_id
Search results will be sorted in descending order by the specified field.

Retrieve users by ID

To get a list of users by ID for a current account, use the following code snippet.

let page = QBGeneralResponsePage(currentPage: 5, perPage: 10)      
QBRequest.users(withIDs: ["21","22"], page: page, successBlock: { (response, page, users) in
     
}, errorBlock:{ (response) in
    
})
QBGeneralResponsePage *page = [QBGeneralResponsePage responsePageWithCurrentPage:5 perPage:10];
[QBRequest usersWithIDs:@[@"20", @"21"] page:page successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBGeneralResponsePage * _Nonnull page, NSArray<QBUUser *> * _Nonnull users) {
       
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
                       
}];

Retrieve user by login

To get a list of users by login for a current account, use the following code snippet.

QBRequest.user(withLogin: "amigo", successBlock: { (response, user) in
    
}, errorBlock: { (response) in
    
})
[QBRequest userWithLogin:@"amigo" successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBUUser * _Nonnull user) {
                
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
                 
}];

Retrieve user by email

To get a list of users by email for a current account, use the following code snippet.

QBRequest.user(withEmail: "[email protected]", successBlock: { (response, user) in

}, errorBlock: { (response) in

})
[QBRequest userWithEmail:@"[email protected]" successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBUUser * _Nonnull user) {
               
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
                 
}];

Retrieve users by full name

To get a list of users found by the server according to the search query, use the following code snippet.
Search requires min 3 characters.

QBRequest.users(withFullName: "Amigo", page: nil, successBlock: { (response, page, users) in
       
}, errorBlock: { (response) in

})
[QBRequest usersWithFullName:@"Amigo" page:nil successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBGeneralResponsePage * _Nonnull page, NSArray<QBUUser *> * _Nonnull users) {
                   
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
                 
}];

Retrieve users by phone number

To get a list of users by phone number for a current account, use the following code snippet.

QBRequest.users(withPhoneNumbers: ["+4427123314"], page: nil, successBlock: { (response, page, users) in
   
}, errorBlock: { (response) in
    
})
[QBRequest usersWithPhoneNumbers:@[@"+4427123314"] page:nil successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBGeneralResponsePage * _Nonnull page, NSArray<QBUUser *> * _Nonnull users) {
             
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
                 
}];

Retrieve user by external user ID

If you have your own database with users (we call these databases as "external databases"), you can use External User ID (ExternalID field) in QBUser model to link users from QuickBlox with users from your external database.

QBRequest.user(withExternalID: 3789, successBlock: { response, user in
    
}, errorBlock: { (response) in
    
})
[QBRequest userWithExternalID:3789 successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBUUser *user) {
    
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
                 
}];

Retrieve users by tags

To get a list of users by tags for a current account, use the following code snippet.

QBRequest.users(withTags: ["iphone"], page: nil, successBlock: { (response, page, users) in
   
}, errorBlock: { (response) in

})
[QBRequest usersWithTags:@[@"iphone"] page:nil successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBGeneralResponsePage * _Nonnull page, NSArray<QBUUser *> * _Nonnull users) {
             
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
                 
}];

Delete user

A user can delete himself from the platform.

QBRequest.deleteCurrentUser(successBlock: { (response) in
    
}, errorBlock: { (response) in
    
})
[QBRequest deleteCurrentUserWithSuccessBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
    
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
                 
}];

Reset user password

It's possible to reset a password via email.

QBRequest.resetUserPassword(withEmail: "[email protected]", successBlock: { (response) in
            
}, errorBlock: { (response) in
               
})
[QBRequest resetUserPasswordWithEmail:@"[email protected]" successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {

} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {

}];

📘

Make sure to enable the email confirmation. This functionality allows application users to confirm their emails. If a user doesn't confirm the email, the emails won't be sent to this user. As a result, a password reset functionality won't work. To enable the email confirmation, proceed as follows:

  1. Go to the Dashboard => YOUR_APP => Users => Settings => User registration confirmation and check the box.
  2. Click the Save button.

🚧

A password reset functionality is available for the Enterprise plan. Contact the sales team for more details.

Update user

Update a user profile by calling the updateUser() method. If you want to change your password, you need to provide 2 parameters: password and oldPassword. The updated user entity will be returned.

🚧

You must set null into the user's password field if you do not want to change your password, otherwise, you will need to add the user's old password to the oldPassword field.

You can update any other field of the user using the updateUser() method. Thus, the snippet below shows how to update a tagList and customData fields.

guard let currentUser = QBSession.current.currentUser else { return }
var customData:[String: String] = [:]

if let data = currentUser.customData?.data(using: .utf8),
   let currentUserCustomData = try? JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: data, options: []) as! [String : String]  {
    customData = currentUserCustomData
}
customData["name"] = "John"
customData["age"] = "31"
customData["city"] = "New York"

let updateUserParameter = QBUpdateUserParameters()
guard let customJSONData = try? JSONSerialization.data(withJSONObject:  customData, options: .prettyPrinted) else { return }
updateUserParameter.customData = String(data: customJSONData, encoding: .utf8)
//example of custom data JSON string
let userCustomDataJsonStringExample = "{\"name\" : \"John\", \"age\" : \"31\", \"city\" : \"New York\"}"
     
updateUserParameter.tags = ["quickblox", "test", "QADev", "chat", "videochat", "webrtc", "conference"]

QBRequest.updateCurrentUser(updateUserParameter, successBlock: {response, user in

}, errorBlock: { (response) in

})
QBUUser *currentUser = QBSession.currentSession.currentUser;
NSMutableDictionary *customData = [NSMutableDictionary dictionary];

if (currentUser.customData) {
    NSData *currentUserJsonData = [currentUser.customData dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
    NSDictionary *currentUserCustomData = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:currentUserJsonData options:kNilOptions error:nil];
    customData = currentUserCustomData.mutableCopy;
}
customData[@"name"] = @"John";
customData[@"age"] = @"31";
customData[@"city"] = @"New York";

QBUpdateUserParameters *updateUserParameter = [[QBUpdateUserParameters alloc] init];
NSData *jsonCustomData = [NSJSONSerialization dataWithJSONObject:customData options:NSJSONWritingPrettyPrinted error:nil];
NSString *jsonCustomDataString = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:jsonCustomData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

updateUserParameter.customData = jsonCustomDataString;
//example of custom data JSON string
NSString *userCustomDataJsonStringExample = @"{\"name\" : \"John\", \"age\" : \"31\", \"city\" : \"New York\"}";

updateUserParameter.tags = @[@"quickblox", @"test", @"QADev", @"chat", @"videochat", @"webrtc", @"conference"];

[QBRequest updateCurrentUser:updateUserParameter successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBUUser * _Nonnull user) {
    
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
    
}];
FieldRequiredDescription
tagsnoUser tags. An array of Strings. A tag must include alphabetic characters only. The tag must be at least 3 and no more than 15 characters long. There are no spaces in the tag format. For example, the "tagOne" format is correct while the "tag one" format is incorrect.

The maximum number of tags is 10. If more than 10 tags are provided, an error is returned: tag list should contain maximum 10 tags.
customDatanoUser custom data. Should be a String. You can convert any data types to String, or example, JSON, XML, etc.

Set user avatar

To set a user avatar, just upload a file to the QuickBlox cloud storage and connect it to the user.

To upload the file to the QuickBlox cloud storage, just convert the file to the date format and upload it to the QuickBlox cloud storage by calling the tUploadFile(fileName:contentType:isPublic:) method. In the response, the uploadedBlob object is returned by the server. Get the blob UID from the uploadedBlob object.

To connect the file to the user, set the blob UID in the customData field of the user model and call the updateCurrentUser() method. As a result, the user avatar gets updated.

let image = UIImage(systemName: "person.circle")
guard let imageData = image?.pngData() else {
    return
}

let fileName = "avatar.png"
let contentType = "image/png"
let isPublic = true
QBRequest.tUploadFile(imageData, fileName: fileName, contentType: contentType, isPublic: isPublic, successBlock: { (response, uploadedBlob) in
    let parameters = QBUpdateUserParameters()
    parameters.blobID = uploadedBlob.id
    
    QBRequest.updateCurrentUser(parameters, successBlock: { (response, user) in
        
    }, errorBlock: { (response) in
        
    })
    
}, statusBlock: { (request, status) in
    
}, errorBlock: { (response) in
    
})
UIImage *image = [UIImage systemImageNamed:@"person.circle"];
NSData *imageData = UIImagePNGRepresentation(image);
NSString *fileName = @"avatar.png";
NSString *contentType = @"image/png";
BOOL isPublic = TRUE;

[QBRequest TUploadFile:imageData fileName:fileName contentType:contentType isPublic:isPublic successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBCBlob * _Nonnull uploadedBlob) {
    
    QBUpdateUserParameters *parameters = [[QBUpdateUserParameters alloc] init];
    parameters.blobID = uploadedBlob.ID;
    
    [QBRequest updateCurrentUser:parameters successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBUUser * _Nonnull user) {
        
    } errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
        
    }];
    
} statusBlock:^(QBRequest * _Nonnull request, QBRequestStatus * _Nonnull status) {
    
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
    
}];

Pass the following arguments to the updateCurrentUser() method.

ArgumentRequiredDescription
parametersyesSpecifies parameters fields that should be set.

Get user avatar

Now, other users can get your avatar by calling the downloadFile(withUID:) method.

let userAvatarImageView = UIImageView()
let user = QBSession.current.currentUser
QBRequest.blob(withID: user.blobID, successBlock: { (response, blob) in
    
    guard let blobUID = blob.uid else {return}
    QBRequest.downloadFile(withUID: blobUID, successBlock: { (response, fileData)  in
        if let image = UIImage(data: fileData) {
            userAvatarImageView.image = image
        } 
    }, statusBlock: { (request, status) in
        
    }, errorBlock: { (response) in
        
    })
    
}, errorBlock: { (response) in
    
})
UIImageView *userAvatarImageView = [[UIImageView alloc] init];
QBUUser *user = QBSession.currentSession.currentUser;
[QBRequest blobWithID:user.blobID successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, QBCBlob * _Nonnull tBlob) {
    
    [QBRequest downloadFileWithUID:tBlob.UID successBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response, NSData * _Nonnull fileData) {
        UIImage *image = [UIImage imageWithData:fileData];
        userAvatarImageView.image = image;
    } statusBlock:^(QBRequest * _Nonnull request, QBRequestStatus * _Nonnull status) {
        
    } errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
        
    }];
    
} errorBlock:^(QBResponse * _Nonnull response) {
    
}];
ArgumentRequiredDescription
avatarUIDyesBlob unique identifier.

What’s Next