We’ve all been there: you’re overwhelmed by messages from a group chat you never wanted to be a part of in the first place; you’ve been added to a massive chain text group with no relevance to you, or an old and beloved group has turned sour, and now you want out.
Whatever your reason, we must, unfortunately, inform you that there’s no such option as ‘blocking’ a WhatsApp group. Instead, you have three options: ‘mute’ the group, ‘report’ the group (in the event of serious infractions), or ‘exit’ the group, and disallow its admins to re-add you.
We’ll walk you through all three options below. For any additional information, please see our FAQs at the end of this article.
Table of Contents
How to mute a WhatsApp group
- Open up the WhatsApp app on your mobile or tablet device and sign into your account if necessary
- Locate the group you wish to mute via the search bar or in your homepage list of chats, tap on it to open it
- Next, tap the three vertical dots in the top-right, and from the drop-down menu, select ‘Mute notifications’
- You can now choose for how long you’d like to mute notifications: ‘Always’, ‘1 week’ or ‘8 hours’. Toggle your selected option, and then tap ‘OK’
- You have successfully muted a WhatsApp group and will not receive notifications from it no matter what, until the time period chosen has elapsed (or you change your mind and change these settings back to default)
How to report a WhatsApp group
- Open up the WhatsApp app on your mobile or tablet device and sign into your account if necessary
- Locate the group you wish to report via the search bar or in your homepage list of chats, tap on it to open it
- Next, tap the three vertical dots in the top-right, and from the drop-down menu, select ‘More >’
- Next, select ‘Report’
- You will be presented with a dialogue box reading: “The most recent messages from this group will be forwarded to WhatsApp.” Below this, you can choose either to simultaneously exit the group and delete the chat, or not.
- Toggle the box appropriately, and when ready to report the group, tap ‘Report’
How to exit a WhatsApp group
- Open up the WhatsApp app on your mobile or tablet device and sign into your account if necessary
- Locate the group you wish to report via the search bar or in your homepage list of chats, tap on it to open it
- Next, tap the three vertical dots in the top-right, and from the drop-down menu, select ‘More >’
- Next, select ‘Exit group’
- You will be asked if you’re sure you want to exit the group, or whether you just want to ‘mute’ it instead (see FAQs for full description of what that means). If you still want to exit the group, tap ‘Exit’
- The group will still show up in your feed of chats, but now that you’ve exited it, you can delete it from this list. To do so, simply tap and hold on it, and then tap the trash can/bin icon at the top of the screen. Finally, tap ‘Delete’.
How to ensure you cannot be re-added to a WhatsApp group you’ve exited
- Open up the WhatsApp app on your mobile or tablet device and sign into your account if necessary
- Tap the three vertical dots in the top right of the homepage, and from the drop-down menu, select ‘Settings’
- Next, tap ‘Account’
- Then, tap ‘Privacy’
- Scroll down to ‘Groups’ and tap on this
- You can now select ‘My contacts except…’
- You’ll be directed to a list of all of your phone and WhatsApp contacts, simply scroll through it (or search for specific names) and highlight each contact who you do not want to be able to add you to groups. Once you’ve completed your selection, tap the green tick/check mark icon in the bottom-right.
- You have successfully blocked those of your contacts who you do not want to be able to add you to groups from doing so.
And there you have it! Several different methods to accomplish different versions of the same thing: blocking an unwanted WhatsApp group.
If you have any further queries or are looking for some more information, please see our FAQs below.
Frequently asked questions
Why would I want to block a WhatsApp group?
WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging applications on the app market today, and if you’ve been a user for a long time (or perhaps have just started) then you’ll know that the number of groups you can suddenly find yourself a member of can begin stacking up quite quickly.
As can happen in such a situation, you may well find yourself added to a group that you never wanted to be a part of. Maybe you’ve been added to some massive chain text group by someone whose phone has clearly been hacked or caught a virus. Maybe you’ve been added to a group by people you know, but dislike. Maybe, just maybe, you’re part of a group which you enjoyed chatting to previously, but which has of late started to fill up with the sort of conversation you find upsetting, offensive, or in some other way unpleasant.
Whatever your reason, we can help you learn how to block a WhatsApp group so that you can quickly and definitively put that group out of your mind. Who has time for unwanted WhatsApp groups anyway?
Can I unblock a WhatsApp group if I change my mind?
Since there’s no way to specifically ‘block’ a WhatsApp group, but rather you can ‘mute’, ‘report’ or ‘exit’ the group, the answer to this question depends on the method you choose.
If you mute a group, then yes, you can absolutely unmute them at any time. If you report the group, then there is, unfortunately, no way to reverse this (as such, it is something we recommend you take very seriously indeed). However if you ‘exit’ the group, then you can certainly rejoin it; all you have to do is to message one of the group’s admins separately and request that they re-add you to it.
What happens when I block a WhatsApp group?
As we’ve said, there’s technically no way to just ‘block’ a group, so again this answer depends on the method you choose to employ.
If you ‘mute’ a WhatsApp group, then you can choose for how long you wish to mute them. Once you’ve done this, all that happens is that you do not receive notifications from that group chat for the allotted time period, and as such, you’ll not be harassed by the copious messages coming through the group. However, you can still interact with the group, sending and receiving messages as often as you like.
If you ‘report’ a WhatsApp group, then your report will be sent to the WhatsApp team who will look over the chat history and case file, and decide what actions must be taken in accordance with the severity of the report. (If you report the group chat for offensive or inappropriate language or behavior, for example, this is a serious charge and may result in the group and/or its admins being blocked from WhatsApp for good, depending.)
If you ‘exit’ a WhatsApp group, then you will remove yourself entirely from the group, and will no longer see it appear in your feed of chats, and will not receive any messages from that group. However, that group can still re-add you at a later date, unless you change your settings appropriately (see our tutorials above).
If I’m blocked from a WhatsApp group, what can I do?
If it’s you that’s been blocked, rather than you doing the blocking, then there is unfortunately not much you can do about it. If you’ve been removed from the group by the group admin, then you’ll have to contact them directly and privately to discuss rejoining the group. If you’ve been blocked by an individual member of the group, then you will not necessarily know, but will simply stop seeing any messages they send to the group, whilst they will no longer see your messages.
