How to Prevent People from Adding You to WhatsApp Groups – WhatsApp has been the most popular messenger platform for a long time. Despite its efforts, Facebook Messenger is still lagging, even though it has closed a sizeable gap. This is despite some very annoying aspects of WhatsApp. One of them is that anyone can add you to any number of groups you don’t want.
The WhatsApp Group feature is very useful, but if we don’t want to be part of a certain group of course it becomes very annoying. But now in the latest update WhatsApp has made changes and you can stop people from adding you to WhatsApp groups. This can be done via WhatsApp groups Privacy Settings.
Stop People from Adding You to WhatsApp Groups
The new WhatsApp privacy settings for groups have been there for a few months from now, although not many people have noticed. This week, WhatsApp changed a little about this. Where before there was a choice Nobody, and is now replaced with My contacts except. There are only a few steps you need to take to prevent people from adding you to WhatsApp Groups.
- Open the WhatsApp application on your cellphone.
- Tap the three-dot menu button.
- choose Settings.
- Tap Account and then Privacy.
- On the next WhatsApp page, you will find the settings feature Group at the bottom, please tap the Group menu.
- You will then have three options.
- Everyone: Anyone can add you to the group
- My contacts: Everyone on your contact list can add you to the group
- My contacts except .: Allows you to select one or more from the list of people in your contacts who cannot add you to the group.
- If you want to prevent everyone from adding you to the WhatsApp group, select it My contacts except… Then select everyone in your contact list.
This ensures two things: First, that no one who is not in your contacts can add you to the WhatsApp group and second, that none of your contacts can add you to the group. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be added to groups at all.
Admins who can’t add you to WhatsApp groups, but will be allowed to send you invitations via private chat. You have 3 days to respond to the invitation after which it will expire. This is good enough to stop them from constantly creating random groups and adding everyone they know.
New Privacy Settings For Groups
If you’ve been a user, you’re no stranger to being added to random groups you don’t want to join. It could be a family group, it could be a sexist group of friends, or it could be a random group with lots of people you don’t even know. Like all things WhatsApp annoying, the Facebook-owned company has finally, after a long wait, decided to tackle the problem. They introduced several new privacy settings on WhatsApp, specifically for groups.
This new change allows you to have more control over which contacts you want to stop adding you to groups. This new change also makes WhatsApp groups more like Facebook groups. Not only do admins now have more control over their groups, you also have more control over the groups you want to add.
Read: Easy Ways to Backup and Restore WhatsApp Chat Messages with Google Drive
Are the new privacy settings useful enough for you? Would you like WhatsApp to be able to do something more? Sound off in the comments below.