diff --git a/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/core/folks/default.nix b/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/core/folks/default.nix
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..9b0f403b079
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/core/folks/default.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+{ fetchurl, stdenv, pkgconfig, glib, gnome3, nspr, intltool
+, vala, sqlite, libxml2, dbus_glib, libsoup, nss, dbus_libs
+, telepathy_glib, evolution_data_server, libsecret, db }:
+
+# TODO: enable more folks backends
+
+stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
+  name = "folks-0.9.6";
+
+  src = fetchurl {
+    url = "mirror://gnome/sources/folks/0.9/${name}.tar.xz";
+    sha256 = "a67e055b5a2724a34a80946e2940c4c0ad708cb1f4e0a09407c6b69a5e40267f";
+  };
+
+  propagatedBuildInputs = [ glib gnome3.libgee sqlite ];
+  # dbus_daemon needed for tests
+  buildInputs = [ dbus_glib telepathy_glib evolution_data_server dbus_libs
+                  vala libsecret libxml2 libsoup nspr nss intltool db ];
+  nativeBuildInputs = [ pkgconfig ];
+
+  configureFlags = "--disable-fatal-warnings";
+
+  NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE = ["-I${nspr}/include/nspr" "-I${nss}/include/nss"
+                        "-I${dbus_glib}/include/dbus-1.0" "-I${dbus_libs}/include/dbus-1.0"];
+
+  enableParallelBuilding = true;
+
+  postBuild = "rm -rf $out/share/gtk-doc";
+
+  installFlags = "gsettingsschemadir=\${out}/share/folks/glib-2.0/schemas/";
+
+  meta = {
+    description = "Folks";
+
+    homepage = https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Folks;
+
+    license = "LGPLv2+";
+
+    maintainers = with stdenv.lib.maintainers; [ lethalman ];
+    platforms = stdenv.lib.platforms.gnu;  # arbitrary choice
+  };
+}
diff --git a/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/default.nix b/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/default.nix
index 1c26c6949ca..7ab56f08814 100644
--- a/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/desktops/gnome-3/default.nix
@@ -50,6 +50,8 @@ rec {
 
   libgnome_keyring = callPackage ./core/libgnome-keyring { };
 
+  folks = callPackage ./core/folks { };
+
   gnome_online_accounts = callPackage ./core/gnome-online-accounts { };
 
   gnome_session = callPackage ./core/gnome-session { };