WhatsApp is putting groups inside groups and calling them Communities

Whatsapp Group Message on iPhone X (Image credit: Luke Filipowicz/iMore)

What you need to know

WhatsApp is working on a new feature called Communities.
Communities are essentially groups within groups with additional administrative controls.

WhatsApp is working on a new feature it calls Communities, with the gist being that administrators will be able to create a group within a group. That overarching group will be dubbed a Community, with sub-groups residing inside.

First spotted by XDA Developers over in the Android world, WABetaInfo now also has additional information about what Communities will be.

What is a community? This name could mean anything, we understand, but a Community is a new place where group admins have more control over groups on WhatsApp, mainly to group other groups easily.

In use, it's possible that a Community could be a school, with individual classes becoming groups within it. Companies could perhaps have their own community for colleagues, with different departments getting their own group, for example.

Whastapp Communities Screenshot (Image credit: WABetaInfo)

Admins can send messages in this group chat and they will be able to group some groups related to the community: for example, a degree course can be considered a community, and all its teaching classes are groups included in this community. Another example: the official Discord server of WBI can be considered a community, while its channels are groups of the community. The community will offer some tools to admins to better manage all groups included in the community but, seen that this feature is under development, these advanced tools are still unknown at the present.

There's no telling when any of this will ship, if at all, and Communities are currently only available to those on the iOS and Android WhatsApp beta. That being said, WhatsApp is already one of the best iPhone apps for people who need to stay in touch with others in the Android world — a feature like Communities would only build on that.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.