WhatsApp Communities: What is it, how it works, and how to get started

 WhatsApp's Communities feature allows users to manage multiple groups by bringing them under one umbrella

Meta-owned instant messaging platform WhatsApp on Thursday announced the rollout of ‘Communities’ features for users to manage multiple groups with ease by bringing them under one umbrella. The feature is rolled out in a phased manner and it will be available to everyone on iOS and Android platforms in the coming months. Here is all you need to know about WhatsApp Communities:

• WhatsApp Communities: What is it

The Communities feature allows users to connect multiple groups together under one umbrella to organize group conversations on WhatsApp. It is a parent group called a community, with connected sub-groups for accessible communication and management. The Communities feature on WhatsApp enables new possibilities, especially for group admins.

• How to get started

For those who have received the feature update, the communities tab is available at the top of their chats on Android and at the bottom on iOS. By tapping on the communities tab, users will be able to start a new Community from scratch or add existing groups. Once in a community, users can switch between available groups to get the information and group admins can send important updates to everyone in the Community. At present, users can add up to 50 groups in a community, in addition to the broadcast group, which can hold up to 5000 members.

• How does it work

Anyone can run a community of their own and invite groups to join. However, the group admins must accept the invite to join the community. Community admins will have the ability to remove groups and individual members from the Community. In addition, group admins will be able to delete inappropriate or abusive chats or media for all members of a group.

If a user leaves a group, he can still be part of the larger Community and will get the announcements shared in the central announcements group. With the help of the broadcast group, the community admin can make an announcement across the entire Community.

In addition to Communities, WhatsApp rolled out other features for its users to make the most of the new addition. Admins can now conduct polls in sub-groups and add up to 32-person on calls via shareable call links. Besides, WhatsApp now allows file sharing of up to 2GB size.