A new WhatsApp feature has arrived exclusively for group admins – Enseñame de Ciencia

We have said on more than one occasion that WhatsApp groups are now almost a necessity, starting from organizing a party, birthdays, work and school groups, etc. WhatsApp has recently transformed groups and they will never be the same as before. Now, for example, a new function has just arrived exclusively for administrators: the social network implements the ability to manage the entry of new participants.

According to WABetaInfo, in the latest update of WhatsApp beta for Android 2.23.6.9 From the Play Store and the beta version of WhatsApp for iOS 23.5.0.74 update, the social media company is debuting a new feature that provides the ability to manage approval for newcomers. Thanks to this feature, new members will not be able to join a group directly, but they will pass a filter under the control of the administrator.

Specifically, this functionality will allow group admins to manage the approval of new members in their groups. This way, when the option is active, anyone trying to join a group will need to get the group admin’s approval. We can say that this function is very similar to Facebook groups in a certain way.

In the following screenshot, you can see how the function is displayed. It appears as ‘Approve new participants’ under WhatsApp group settings. Activating this feature is optional, and once activated, any new member will need to get pre-approval from the administrator. Similar to Facebook, admins will be able to see the members who try to join under the “Pending Participants” section.

As evidenced by the specialized moderator WABetaInfo, this function is very useful for the following reasons:

1. When this option is disabled, anyone can join a community subgroup without making a request to the administrator. In the past, this would lead to spam messages asking the community manager to add themselves to the subgroup. Finally, group members can join a subgroup without making requests to the community manager.

2. When this option is activated, anyone who wants to join a group needs approval from the group admin by opening a new section called “Pending Participants”, available under Group Information. With this feature, group admins can ensure that only required members join the group, even when they try to join the group via an invite link.

3. This feature can be useful for groups and communities with a large number of participants, such as ours on WhatsApp. It can be really difficult to manage large groups and having the option to approve new participants can make it easier for group admins.

Finally, it should be noted that this new function is still in the testing phase on both Android and iOS, at present only some beta testers can access it. It is expected to expand in the coming days to include more users and finally to everyone without exception.