How to Approve New Members Before They Join a Group Chat

By The Nadeemi team · Checked on 2026-11-10

Checked against the official help pages of WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, and our own app, 10 November 2026. Menu names vary slightly by phone and version.

Every group chat has a front door, and the invite link is its key. Hand the key to forty parents, and by the end of term it has been forwarded to a grandfather, a tutor, a stranger who sells something, and someone nobody can identify. The fix is old and simple: a door that opens only when someone inside says yes.

All the big messengers now have that door. Most people have never turned it on.

WhatsApp: Approve new participants

1. Open the group and tap the group name.
2. Tap Group settings (on some versions, Group permissions).
3. Turn on Approve new participants.

From then on, people who open the group's invite link see Request to join. Admins see the pending requests in the group info and can approve or reject each one. The switch is off by default. It applies to people joining through the link; admins can still add people directly. If the link already travelled too far, reset it too: group name > Invite via link > Reset link (our WhatsApp invite link guide has the details).

Telegram: links that need approval

Telegram puts the choice on each link rather than on the whole group:

1. Open the group > Edit (the pencil) > Invite Links > Create a New Link.
2. Turn on Request admin approval, optionally set a time limit or a number of uses, and save.
3. Share that link. People who open it send a join request, and admins review them.

Because it is per link, you can keep a direct link for close friends and an approval link for everyone else. Remember that a Telegram group's member list can show to members, and phone numbers are visible depending on each person's privacy settings.

Signal: Approve new members

1. Open the group > tap its name > Group link.
2. Turn the link on and switch on Approve new members.
3. If the link leaked, tap Reset link in the same menu.

Requests appear for admins to approve. Signal keeps group membership encrypted, so the server does not learn who is in the group.

Nadeemi: only people you let in

When you Bring your group, choose Only people I let in; when you make an extra link for an existing group chat, tick I approve each person. People who open the link make a free account (no phone number, email optional) and tap Ask to join. You see them under Asking to join and choose Let in or Decline; they are told either way. Each link can also expire (1 hour to 30 days, or never), stop after a number of joins, or be revoked, and a group can have up to ten active links at once, so a "family" link and a "school friends" link can have different rules.

Two details that matter for privacy: the public link preview says only "You are invited to a group chat" (not the group's name or members), and members see each other's names and @usernames, never phone numbers, because Nadeemi has none.

What to check before you press "Let in"

Approval is only as good as the two seconds you spend on it:

• Do you, or another admin, know this person? If not, ask in the group: "Does anyone know @rania_k?"
• Does the name make sense for this group (a parent of a child in the class, a neighbour in the building)?
• Is the account brand new with no photo or name? Not always a red flag, but worth a direct message first.
• Are many requests arriving at once? The link has probably leaked. Reset or revoke it and send a new one privately.
• Share the job. Make two or three admins, so requests don't wait for one busy person.

When approval is not enough

For big groups where most people only need news (a school year group, a mosque committee, a residents' association), combine approval with an announcement-only setting so only admins post (how to set one up). And if what you want is to stop being added to groups at all, see how to stop being added to group chats.

FAQ

How do I make people ask before joining my WhatsApp group? Group name > Group settings > turn on Approve new participants. People who open the invite link then send a request, and admins approve or reject it.

Does Telegram have join requests? Yes, per invite link. Create a new invite link with Request admin approval on; people who use it send a join request for admins to review.

Can Signal groups require admin approval? Yes. In the group's settings, open Group link and turn on Approve new members. You can also reset the link there.

Do approval settings stop admins from adding people directly? No. Approval controls who can join through the link. Admins can still add people they choose.

What should I do if strangers already joined through a leaked link? Remove them, reset or revoke the link, turn on approval, and send the new link privately to the people you want.

Sources (checked 10 November 2026)

• WhatsApp Help Center (group settings, approve new participants, invite links): https://faq.whatsapp.com/
• Telegram, flexible invitation links and join requests: https://telegram.org/blog/shared-media-scrolling-calendar-join-requests-and-more
• Telegram Bot API, invite links that create join requests: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api#chatinvitelink
• Signal Support, Group Links: https://support.signal.org/hc/articles/360051086971
• Nadeemi Help, invites: https://nadeemi.com/help/invite/

Names of other apps are trademarks of their owners, used only for comparison. Nadeemi is not affiliated with any of them.

Drafted with AI help and checked by a person on the date above.