How to stop group members from changing WhatsApp group info [Android Guide]

Facebook-owned popular instant messaging app WhatsApp is currently used by more than 1.5 Billion people around the world. WhatsApp not only allows private chat, but also lets users have conversations with their friends, family, colleagues and others in a group chat. However, there always are some mischievous or notorious members in a group who spoil the experience by unnecessarily making changes to the group’s info like group name, icon and description. Well, to deal with these kind of users, WhatsApp rolled out admin controls back in May this year that give more power to group admins. These admin controls also let admins stop members from changing WhatsApp group info. If you are an admin of a group having some notorious members, here’s how you can stop them from making changes to the group info.

How to stop members from changing WhatsApp group info

Step 1: Open the WhatsApp group you are the admin of and then tap on the three-dot menu button located at the top-right corner of the screen. After that, tap on ‘Group info’ and then tap on ‘Group settings’.

Step 2: Under the ‘Group settings’ menu, tap on the ‘Edit group info’ option. Doing this will further present you with two options – ‘All participants’ and ‘Only admins’. By default, ‘All participants’ will be selected, which means all the group members can change the group info like group name, photo and description. Well, to stop members from changing WhatsApp group info, you will have to select the ‘Only admins’ option and then tap on ‘OK’.

Well that’s it. That’s how you can stop members from changing WhatsApp group info. Once you perform Step 2, a message will be delivered in the group information all the members that only admins can the group info now. Those who are not an admin of the group can no longer make any changes to the group’s name, icon or description.

When all the members of a group are allowed to change group info, they can see the ‘Add group description’ as well the edit button (pencil icon) under the ‘Group info’ section. But, when only admins are allowed to change group info, the ‘Add group description’ option and edit button is removed for non-admin members.

The edit button is replaced with an information icon, tapping on which opens a dialog box displaying message “Only admins can edit this group’s info”.

The admin controls rolled out by WhatsApp also let group admins stop members from sending messages in group. This is useful if a WhatsApp group is created only to share announcements and updates.

For more such tips and tricks, you can head over to our ‘How-To Guides‘ section.