How to Stop Someone From Adding You to WhatsApp Groups

WhatsApp group privacy settings allow you to stop people from adding you to WhatsApp groups.

By Aman Rashid | Updated: 14 November 2019 14:33 IST

How to Stop Someone From Adding You to WhatsApp Groups

Wondering how to stop strangers from adding me to WhatsApp groups? Here’s how.

Highlights

You can now stop people from adding you to WhatsApp groups
Until now strangers could add you to groups on WhatsApp
You can allow only your contacts or specific people to add you to groups

WhatsApp groups are a very popular feature for keeping in touch with friends and family from around the world. However, in order for make things simple WhatsApp earlier used to allow anyone to add anyone to a WhatsApp group, as long as they had the other person's contact number. This had led to the massive issue of random people adding others to random WhatsApp groups. After a lot of user feedback, WhatsApp decided to fix the problem by giving privacy settings to deter users from randomly adding others to WhatsApp groups. Recently, WhatsApp rolled out these group privacy settings to everyone.

New group privacy settings on WhatsApp are available on both Android and iPhone. Here's how you can enable these settings on your smartphone.

How to enable Group Privacy Settings on your smartphone

Before we tell you how you can implement these settings on your smartphone, make sure that you have installed the latest version of WhatsApp on your device. For Android, it is version 2.19.308 and for iPhone, it is 2.19.112. You can update by going to the respective WhatsApp pages on both the Google Play Store for Android and the App Store for iPhone. With that out of the way, just follow these steps.

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How to stop someone from adding you to WhatsApp groups on Android

If you are an Android user, follow these steps to stop people from adding you to WhatsApp groups without permission.

WhatsApp for Android group privacy settings can be found in Settings > Account > Privacy > Groups

Open WhatsApp on your Android smartphone and tap the vertical three-dots icon on the top-right.
Next, tap Settings > Account > Privacy.
Now tap Groups and select one of the three given options — Everyone, My Contacts, or My Contacts Except....
If you select Everyone, anyone can add you to groups.
Selecting My Contacts only allows your contacts to add you to WhatsApp groups.
Finally, the third option My Contacts Except lets you allow only selected people to add you to WhatsApp groups. You can either select contacts one by one or you can even select all contacts by tapping on the Select All icon on the top-right. These people will be prompted to send you the group invite through a private chat. You will then have three days to accept or deny the request for joining the group before it expires.

How to stop someone from adding you to WhatsApp groups on iPhone

If you use WhatsApp on iPhone, here's how you can stop others from adding you to WhatsApp groups.

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WhatsApp for iPhone group privacy settings can be found in Settings > Account > Privacy > Groups

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Open WhatsApp on your iPhone and on the bottom bar, tap Settings.
Next, tap Account > Privacy > Groups.
On the next screen, select one of the three given options — Everyone, My Contacts and My Contacts Except. Over here as well you can select contacts one by one or you can just select all the contacts by tapping the Select All button on the bottom-right.

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Further reading: WhatsApp, Stop Adding Me to WhatsApp Groups, Group Privacy Settings, Android, Google Play Store, iPhone, App Store, Network, Privacy