Following WhatsApp’s new privacy policy line, people have switched to security and privacy messaging focused apps like Telegram and Signal. However, many users continue to use WhatsApp as most of their contacts are there. Sometimes, WhatsApp users often create groups and add others without their permission. It must have happened to you and made you wonder if you could prevent it. Of course, you can by enabling a few options and we’ll show you how.
WhatsApp Groups have a user limit of 256, but even a smaller active group can pop your phone’s notifications. You may wake up to a series of messages tagging you, discussing all sorts of things under the sun that you don’t want to be a part of. Fortunately, WhatsApp includes a mechanism that prevents people from adding you to unwanted and random groups. That way, you’ll have the option to choose whether you want to be part of that group and prevent spam from reaching your phone’s screen.
Let’s start.
How to Stop Adding to WhatsApp Group on Android?
Due to the majority of Android phone users out there, we will start with this platform first.
Stage 1: Launch WhatsApp on your phone and tap the three-dot menu icon then select Settings.
Step 2: Tap on Account and then select Privacy from the list.
Stage 3: Under Groups, you will see three options.
- Everyone means anyone can add you to a WhatsApp group.
- The My Contacts option means that only people whose numbers you have saved in your Contacts can add you to a WhatsApp group.
- The Exclude My Contacts option acts as a blacklist for My Contacts where anyone in your contacts list except those you specifically exclude can add you to a WhatsApp group.
Tap Done at the bottom of the screen after making changes to save the settings. You can come back later and change the settings or add/remove contacts from the list if you want.
How to Stop Adding to WhatsApp Group on iOS?
The process remains more or less the same for the iOS version of WhatsApp. The interface looks and works differently due to Apple’s design language.
Stage 1: Tap the Settings button in the bottom bar menu and select Account.
Step 2: Select Privacy, then you will see the Groups option. Choose this.
Stage 3: Just like on Android, there are three options here. As noted above,
- Everyone means anyone can add you to their WhatsApp group. This is also the default option selected.
- My contacts means people in your contact list or contacts app can add you to their WhatsApp group.
- The Exclude My Contacts option is where you can select contacts from your contact list who are not allowed to add you to any WhatsApp group.
What Happens If Someone Still Tries To Add You To Their WhatsApp Group?
Let’s say you don’t want anyone to add you to a WhatsApp group without your permission. Your link shouldn’t be that person and shouldn’t add you without your permission.
When the other person adds your name to the list, it displays a pop-up message informing you that you cannot be added to the group. This means that no matter how hard they try, they will need your permission to make you a member of that group.
However, they can still send an invite link to join the group. And whether or not to join one is entirely up to you. With the required option available, you at least have the option to avoid all spam and spam.
This is a subtle way of conveying the message. Again, don’t abuse the private message feature and bombard it with ‘join my group’ links. That’s not nice either.
Groups Are Fun
It’s annoying to wake up to mundane morning messages every morning with random images filling up your WhatsApp app. If you haven’t enabled the required options, people will follow you to the community, local clubs, gyms, etc. You can add it to any group, such as And more often, the group option is abused by selling spam, advertisements, and other unsolicited emails. Messages.
The ability to prevent people from adding people to a group without their permission is a huge boon. While these are steps in the right direction, there is still a long way to go. The size of the user base Facebook has across platforms and geographies only makes it harder for them to regulate and prevent such situations.
Next: Received a message from an unknown number on WhatsApp Web and want to save it? You need to follow this guide to learn how to add new contacts using WhatsApp Web.
