The WhatsApp Community feature, a relatively recent addition, allows you to bring all your groups together in one place for easy management. This guide explores what WhatsApp communities are and walks you through creating and managing your very first community.
Good to know: also learn how to create or manage a WhatsApp Group.
What Are WhatsApp Communities
WhatsApp Communities enables you to organize similar groups in one place. For example, you can create a community for your family and friends who love movies or get together on Sundays to play tennis. Organizations can create communities for their respective departments, such as HR, Design, and Content. While a group connects several people in a single chat, a community brings together multiple groups and their members under one umbrella.
Communities offer significant perks, such as streamlined communication through shared messages via an Announcement channel. They also include strong privacy and collaboration tools to manage admins and members effectively. Furthermore, WhatsApp ensures that Communities, much like Groups, are protected by robust end-to-end encryption for maximum privacy.
WhatsApp allows a user to create up to 50 Communities and add as many as 5,000 members to the Announcement group. Communities also feature 32-person video and voice calls, file sharing up to 2 GB, reactions, and polls.
Create a WhatsApp Community
You can create a WhatsApp community from the mobile app or your PC. I have created a Community using the Web version of WhatsApp, but the desktop app doesn’t appear to have this option just yet.
Open the WhatsApp app on your phone, and switch to the Communities tab at the bottom. Press the Start your community button to kickstart the process.
Press Get started.
Name your new Community. You can also add a profile photo and description if you would like. Press the Next button when done.
By default, your Community features an Announcements channel and General chat section.
If you wish to create another Community, go to Communities in the WhatsApp app, and tap the New community button.
If you’re using WhatsApp on a PC, press the plus sign in the upper-right corner, above your list of conversations.
Select the New Community option.
Press the Next button to continue, then follow the same steps as Mobile.
Once your Community is created, you can view all your Communities by clicking on the three-person icon on the left. If you wish to add a new Community, do so easily by pressing the New community button.
Tip: maintain a low profile on WhatsApp with these easy privacy tips.
Add Groups to Your WhatsApp Community
Once you’ve created a new Community, you can start adding groups. Note that, you can add groups only if you’re an admin.
Go to the Community you just created in WhatsApp, and press the Add group button.
Choose either Add existing groups or Create a new group. I’ve opted to add a couple of existing groups.
Press the Next button to add them to your Community.
Confirm your choice by pressing the Add to community button on the next screen. The group(s) will appear on the Community page.
On WhatsApp Web, go to your Community by clicking on its name.
Select the option to Add group.
You will have the same options as you did with Mobile. Continue, as instructed in the previous section.
Add People to Your WhatsApp Community
Open the Community page in the WhatsApp app, and tap on the three dots in the upper corner. Tap Invite members.
Select how you want to invite members: send them a link via WhatsApp or copy the link, and send it via other apps or email. You can also add people from your own WhatsApp list directly, if you think they won’t mind.
When someone new joins the Community, they will be added to the Announcements channel. If they wish to join the other groups in the Community, they can do so by request (or freely joining for those groups that allow that). As a member of Announcements, the newcomer will be able to access all news posted in that channel by the admin(s.)
On WhatsApp Web, open the Community, and click Announcements. Press on its profile picture at the top of the chat box. A side window will appear, showing you the Community info. Click on the Add members option for the same options as above.
FYI: learn how to schedule messages on WhatsApp using one of these methods.
Remove Groups and Members from Your WhatsApp Community
When it’s time to clean up your WhatsApp Community, you can remove groups or members.
Open the WhatsApp Community, and access the group you wish to delete. Tap on the three dots in the upper-right corner, and select Group info.
Swipe to the bottom, and select the first option in red: Remove from community. Press Remove in the pop-up to confirm. This will remove the group and members who aren’t part of other groups.
If you only wish to delete a member from your Community, go to Announcements. Press the three dots, and select Announcements info. Switch to the Community tab to view the full list of members (towards the bottom), long-press on the person you want to delete, and select Remove [name].
You can also remove people from individual groups.
If you wish to remove a group from a Community using WhatsApp Web, open the group, click the three dots in the upper-right corner, and select Group info.
Scroll down in the side panel on the right, and click Remove from community.
To remove a single member, navigate to your Community, then Announcements. Bring up the Community info side page, switch to the Community tab, and scroll down to the Members area.
Click on the member you wish to remove, and select Remove from community.
Deactivate (Delete) Your WhatsApp Community
If the Community no longer serves a purpose for you, there is, of course, the option to delete it.
Go to your Community in the WhatsApp app, press the three dots in the upper-right corner, and select Community info.
Swipe down and select Deactivate Community. Confirm in the pop-up.
In your Chats column in the app, a message will inform you that the Community was removed. Similar messages will appear for the groups you’ve added. To remove them from view, long-press them, then on the Bin button in the upper right.
On WhatsApp Web, bring up the Community info side panel, scroll down, and click Deactivate community.
There are often new ways to manage your WhatsApp use, such as the recently introduced Lists, a convenient way to group your conversations and the option to create WhatsApp profile links for easy profile sharing.
Image credit: DepositPhotos. All screenshots by Alexandra Arici.
