When it comes to chatting with several people simultaneously, SMS quickly show their limits. It is better to create a WhatsApp group so that everyone can exchange live with all the participants.
Simple, efficient, free and above all ultra-popular, WhatsApp remains the queen messaging application. A few seconds are enough to quickly share with each member of your entourage, who also have a WhatsApp account, messages of course, but also photos, videos, voice recordings or even make audio or video calls.
But the main strength of WhatsApp remains its ability to organize group discussions. A simple and very useful operation when it comes to communicating with several people at the same time. And there are many occasions: preparing a birthday party, a group outing, organizing an event, chatting with several family members or talking to several collaborators to carry out a project, for example. Teens also see it as a great way to bring together their circle of close friends or the students in their class.
A WhatsApp group can accommodate up to 256 participants. But watch out for the cacophony! Already, beyond 10 people, the discussions by messages become difficult to follow, not to mention the string of notifications that your mobile will not fail to sound with each message published. Follow the guide to create a WhatsApp group from your mobile, manage participants and chats, leave the group or close it when it becomes useless. The interface of WhatsApp varies slightly between the Android and iOS version but the functions remain the same.
Whether you use an iPhone or an Android mobile, creating a group on WhatsApp presents no difficulty. You just need to make sure that the people you want to add to the group all have a WhatsApp account.
- Launch WhatsApp, then view the chat thread. On Android, press the three vertical points at the top right of the screen and choose the option New groupor press the round New chat buttonat the bottom, and choose new band on the next screen. On iOS, just press the link New group above ongoing discussions.
- A list of all contacts in your address book who use WhatsApp is displayed. Just press people’s names you want to add to the group. You can also enter their name in the field To research to go faster. When all your contacts are selected, press the Arrow at the bottom right on Android or the button Next top right on iOS.
- Now give your group a name. You can add emoticons to it if you want. The group name cannot exceed 25 characters.
- You can also add an image for the group to quickly identify it in your thread. Press for it camera icon to the left of the name. Choose whether you want to take a snapshot with the mobile camera, search for an image in your gallery or find one on the web.
- When everything is ready, press the tick green on Android or on the link Create at the top right of the screen on iOS.
- The group is immediately created and ready to use.
- For their part, members added to the group see a new discussion thread appear in their list.
Forgot to add one of your contacts to a WhatsApp group? Do not panic. It is always possible to add a person even once the group is active. Warning: only the creator of the group can perform this operation. If guests want to invite someone else, they will need to ask the group administrator to do so for them.
- Open the created group chat. Press on group name at the top of the screen.
- The group settings page appears. Scroll it down. Then press Add attendees.
- Choose the contact you want to invite from your address book. Validate by pressing the tick on Android or on the button Next on iOS. The contact is added.
Do you want to exclude one of the participants? As the creator of the group, you have full freedom for it to no longer be part of it.
- Go to group settings by tapping the name of the group at the top of the chat. Scroll down the page. Then tap the name of the participant you want to kick.
- From the menu that appears, choose Remove (followed by the name of the contact). Confirm your choice. The contact is no longer part of the group. He is informed. However, he retains the discussions that took place before his ouster.
Do you no longer want to deal with the WhatsApp group you created? You can pass control to another member of the group. He can then add other people and manage the group.
- Go to group settings by tapping the name of the group at the top of the chat. Scroll down the page. Then press the name of the participant to whom you want to entrust the management of the group.
- From the menu that appears, choose Appoint group admin.
- The member who has become an administrator can then remove your administration rights and proceed in the same way and by choosing Dismiss the admin.
Too many notifications? Too many irrelevant discussions? Each member of a WhatsApp group has the possibility, at any time, to leave it.
- Go to group settings by tapping the name of the group at the top of the chat. Scroll down the page. Then press the menu Leave the group.
- WhatsApp offers you one last option before validating your decision. You can switch to silent mode. In this way, you are still part of the group but you will no longer receive any notification of the arrival of new messages.
When you are invited to a WhatsApp group, you have no say. Even if no one asks you for your opinion, anyone can add you to a group at any time… unless you take your precautions.
- Go to WhatsApp settings by tapping the three vertical points top right then Settings on Android or on the menu Settingsat the bottom right of the screen on iOS.
- On the page that appears, choose Account then press Privacy.
- On the page that appears, tap the menu Groups. By default, anyone can invite you. Choose My contacts to limit invitations to only contacts in your address book. You can also prevent a specific person from adding you without your permission. Choose for it My contacts except… and indicate the correspondent appearing in your address book who will not be able to add you. Validate by pressing the button Ended (on Android).
This is unavoidable in a group chat. Everyone goes there with their little image, their animated GIF or a video sequence to brighten up a conversation. Except that in the long run, all these elements take up space on the mobile. Do some cleaning.
- Go to group settings by tapping the name of the group at the top of the chat. In the Media, links and documents section, press the number at the end of the line (it indicates the number of documents shared in the discussion).
- Long press the thumbnails of the files you want to delete to select them.
- Then press the icon of Trash at the top of the screen. In the dialog box that appears, uncheck the box Remove media from this thread and choose delete for me. This way the other members of the group will continue to see them.
- You can also prevent received documents (photos and video) from cluttering up your mobile’s storage space. To do this, access the WhatsApp settings, then choose the menu Discussions.
- In the page that appears, toggle the switch Media visibility (on Android) or Save to Camera Roll (on iOS) in idle position.
How to delete a WhatsApp group?
The group you created no longer exists? You can delete it. All the messages you exchanged there will no longer be accessible to you. On the other hand, the participants will be able to continue to access it, but they will no longer be able to exchange with each other through this group.
- Go to group settings by tapping the name of the group at the top of the chat. Scroll down the page. Then press the menu Leave the group.
- Confirm your decision by pressing Leave the group. There is no longer an administrator at the head of the group. Instead of the option Leave the group appeared an option Delete group. Press it.
- Leave tick the box Remove media from this thread to not keep any files, then confirm by pressing To delete.
