By default, anyone who can reach your account can put you into a group without asking. That is how most people end up in channels they never joined, being advertised at by strangers.
One setting ends it, and it is the setting with the best ratio of effort to nuisance removed in the whole app.
What you will be able to do
- check_circle Stop strangers adding you to groups and channels.
- check_circle Keep it easy for the people who legitimately need to.
- check_circle Know what somebody blocked by the setting sees instead.
- check_circle Deal properly with a group you have already been added to.
Same three tiers as everything else on the privacy screen, with the same exception lists underneath.
person_off Why being added is the default
Being able to add somebody to a group is convenient: it is how a friend gets you into a conversation without a round trip. The trouble is that the same mechanism scales, and anybody who has collected your username from a public group can use it too.
Restricting it to contacts removes the entire category. Somebody who is not in your contacts simply cannot put you anywhere, and no amount of automation changes that.
Nothing is lost in the process. A person who wanted to invite you is shown the alternative: they send you the group's link in a private message, and you decide.
Choosing the tier, and cleaning up
Three settings and one thing to do about the groups you are already in.
public The default
group Contacts only
block Nobody at all
delete A group you did not ask to join
Set it to My Contacts and the problem is gone. The rest of this page is refinement.
settings Thirty seconds
- Open Privacy and Security Settings, then Privacy and Security.
- Open Groups and Channels The row is named for what it controls: who can add you.
- Choose My Contacts Or Nobody with exceptions if you are more exposed.
- Add exceptions if you need them Always Allow accepts people and whole groups.
- While you are here The rows above and below — who can see your number, who can find you by it — are the other half of the same defence.
This page is refusing invitations you did not ask for. The curriculum step is the other side of the same mechanism: issuing links with limits, tracking which one brought whom, and revoking one that has escaped.
At a glance
- 1Who can add me
Set group invites to My Contacts.
- 2They get a link
Blocked inviters can send you an invite link instead.
- 3Already added?
Leave the group; muting keeps you a member.
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