Meteor: how to access another user's details? - meteor

Question

Meteor.users.findOne() gives me back my user document.
Meteor.users.findOne({_id: 'my ID'}) gives me back my user document.
Meteor.users.findOne({_id: 'another users's ID'}) gives me back UNDEFINED.
This is obviously restricted by security. But how can I access another users's account details e.g. _id, name, profile, etc?

Answer 1

You'll need to add a publisher for the user. Here's an example:
// The user fields we are willing to publish.
const USER_FIELDS = {
username: 1,
emails: 1,
};
Meteor.publish('singleUser', function (userId) {
// Make sure userId is a string.
check(userId, String);
// Publish a single user - make sure only allowed fields are sent.
return Meteor.users.find(userId, { fields: USER_FIELDS });
});
Then on the client you can subscribe like this:
Metor.subscribe('singleUser', userId);
or use a template subscription like this:
this.subscribe('singleUser', userId);
Security notes:
Always check the arguments to your publishers, or clients can do bad things like pass {} for userId. If you get an error, make sure you meteor add check.
Always use a fields option with the users collection. Otherwise you'll publish all of their secrets. See the "Published Secrets" section of common mistakes.

Answer 2

Run it on the server like so:
Server:
Meteor.publish("otherUsers", function (userID) {
return Meteor.users.findOne({_id: userID});
});
Client:
Meteor.subscribe("otherUsers", <userIdYouWantToGetDetailsFor>);
Then you can just do a Meteor.users.findOne on the client keep in mind you can only do it for your user and the userID that you passed in the meteor subscribe