What we can do is to register a content observer for that particular content uri(contacts in this case) in our data source. Something like this:

fun registerContentObserver(): LiveData<Long> {

val changedAt: MutableLiveData<Long> = MutableLiveData(System.currentTimeMillis())

observer = object : ContentObserver(null) {

override fun onChange(self: Boolean) {

changedAt.postValue(System.currentTimeMillis())

}

}

contentResolver.registerContentObserver(ContactsContract.Data.CONTENT_URI, true, observer)

return changedAt

}

We can observe this, so that view will be notified when content has changed.

If you want to automatically update the list then in the view model you can do a switch transformation in this new livedata we created:

var myContacts: LiveData<List<MyContact>> = Transformations.switchMap(myContactsRepository.contactChangeListener) {

liveData {

emit(myContactsRepository.fetchContacts())

}

}

So whenever a content change occurs, new contacts will be fetched automatically.