WhatsApp Communities Explained: Create, Join and Manage

A Community puts several related WhatsApp groups under one roof, with one Announcements group that reaches every member. It suits schools, housing societies, offices and clubs that have many smaller groups but sometimes need to tell everyone the same thing.

Community vs group

• A group is one chat where everyone can talk (up to 1,024 members).
• A community is a folder of groups. Members join only the groups they want, but everyone gets the community's announcements.
• Only community admins can post in Announcements. Members can reply to an announcement in some cases, but the main board stays tidy.
• In a community, members of one group can't see the phone numbers of people in other groups, but admins can see them.

Create a community on Android

1. Open WhatsApp and tap the Communities tab (bottom of the screen; on older versions, top left).
2. Tap New community › Get started.
3. Type a community name and a short description, and add a photo if you like. Tap the green arrow.
4. Tap Create new group or Add existing groups (only groups where you are admin can be added). Tap the green tick to finish.

Create a community on iPhone

1. Tap Communities at the bottom.
2. Tap New Community › Get Started.
3. Enter the name, description and photo, then tap Next.
4. Create new groups or add existing ones, then tap Create.

Send an announcement

1. Go to Communities and tap your community.
2. Open Announcements.
3. Type your message and send. Every community member receives it.

Join or leave a community

• Join: tap a community invite link from an admin, or join one of its groups; you are then also a community member.
• Join more groups inside it: open the community and tap a group that shows Join or Request to join.
• Leave: open the Communities tab › tap the community › tap its name to open Community info › Exit community. Pick Exit community to keep the old messages, or Exit and delete for me to remove it from your Chats too. You also leave every group of that community you were in. Admins are told; other members are not.
• Created the community yourself? The creator can't simply exit; you have to deactivate the community first (Community info › Deactivate community).

If it doesn't work

• No Communities tab: update WhatsApp. On some phones the community list appears at the top of Chats instead.
• Can't add an existing group: you must be an admin of that group.
• Members can't post in Announcements: that is how it is meant to work. Use one of the community's normal groups for conversation.

Safety tip

Be careful with community invites from strangers. Admins of a community can see your number and contact you. If you start getting spam from a community, exit it and use Report community in community info.

This is GroupChatOn’s own easy guide. We are not WhatsApp and are not linked with WhatsApp or Meta. WhatsApp sometimes changes its menus: if a button looks different on your phone, update WhatsApp from the Play Store or App Store.

Still stuck?

Contact support. Tell us which tool or page you were using, what you tapped, what you saw, and your phone or computer and browser (for example: Android phone, Chrome). We reply by email.