Posted by Being in group chats is fantastic; the convenience is on another level but also you might want to leave an iPhone chat. It allows you to have multiple conversations with different people simultaneously and enable the exchange to be seamless. Often you may find yourself in a group with no importance to you, and therefore you want to leave such group, and you’re unable to do so.
A group text or chat is an excellent way of informing people and keeping them in the loop, but along the line, the conversations and texts can become annoying, and you may want to stop the notifications. In this piece, I will show you how to leave a group text on your iPhone or quickly disable notifications of a group chat.
Why Can’t I Leave a Group Chat on an Apple Device?
Leaving a group chat may prove difficult at times; below are a few reasons why you as an individual can’t vacate a chat group on your iPhone and what you can do to escape. There are two forms of a group chat or text group in iPhone messages:
- An MMS/SMS group: This group includes those with Apple devices and non-Apple devices.
- And an iMessage group: where members are all Apple device users.
To tell the difference between the two, An MMS/SMS text group has green speech bubbles, and an iMessage text group has blue speech bubbles. If one person at least in the group is a non-Apple device user, the group will be an MMS/SMS group; it doesn’t matter if other users are apple users.
MMS Groups vs iMessage Groups
In an MMS/SMS group, there is no option for leaving. In an iMessage group chat, you can leave the group because all members are Apple device users. But in an MMS/SMS group, members can only leave if there are three members left in the group who are all using an Apple device. If you can’t leave for some reason, one or more members are not using an Apple device with iMessage enabled.
- Group iMessage messages appear in blue bubbles while group SMS/MMS appear in green bubbles.
- You can’t name an MMS group, but you can rename any iMessage group.
- Participants cannot be added or removed from MMS groups, while you can add participants on iMessage groups.
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How to Leave a Group Text on iPhone
Now that you know the difference between both group texts available on an Apple device, here is how to leave each:
All Members using iOS Devices: iMessage
You can decide to leave an iMessage group text on your iPhone can be for various reasons. Some of these can be a loss of interest in the group, a group no longer relevant to you, or the number of notifications you get being excessive. Regardless of your reasons, there are two options available to you. You can either mute notifications or leave the group chat entirely.
For iMessage groups, all group members have to be using an iPhone or other iOS device. And to know if all members use iMessage, your text message bubbles will appear blue, and theirs will seem grey. If all group members are Apple device users, there’s an option to leave when you wish to.
Below is how to leave an iMessage group:
- Open the Messages app on your Apple device, i.e. iPhones or iPads.
- Tap on the group text you want to leave.
- Click on the top header of the group conversation, which is around where the Messages profiles are.
- Tap on the “leave this conversation” to leave.
- To confirm your exit, tap on “Leave this Conversation again”.
- Tap on “Done.”
The group members will get a notification once you’ve left the group, and you won’t get any reports from the group anymore.
How to Mute a Group Text Chat
Instead of leaving a group text, you can decide to mute the group and prevent recurrent notifications from popping up from the group. The benefit of muting a group means you can always revisit the chats later on at your convenience:
- Tap on the group chat message
- Tap on the group icons at the top of the thread
- If your device is on iOS 14 or below, tap the group icons at the top, then click on the Info button
- Scroll down the menu and turn on the Hide Alerts feature.
Another way to mute a group is to do it from your list of message conversations. You have to swipe to the leftover group chat message and click on the alert button. On iOS 15, when the hide alert feature is on, the “Hide alert” icon appears on the right side of the conversation. A crescent icon appears next to your group conversation if your device runs on iOS 14 and below.
The hide alert feature stops you from getting notifications from a specific conversation or a specific group conversation. It doesn’t work simultaneously for all the messages on your Apple device. You still get to receive notifications from other messages.
What to do if “Leave This Conversation” Is not an Option
As of February 2022, Apple made it that you can’t leave a group on iMessage with only three people as a member. This is because the chat would become just an ordinary one-on-one chat, and it would become a non-group chat, defeating the original idea of the iMessage functionality. This means the “leave this conversation” icon in the configuration window will be greyed when you try to leave a group chat with exactly three members in it.
To leave the group chat, All you have to do is click on the group avatar icons display, add another person to the group to make it four members, then go ahead and tap the “leave this conversation” on the same menu, and just like that you’ve left the group chat.
How to Create a Group On iPhone
Anyone can create a group chat on their Apple device to communicate and have conversations with several people at ease. Nowadays, a large portion of our communication with family, friends, colleagues, and religious community is via text. It is the easiest and the fastest way to reach others since many move at a frantic pace today.
The iMessage feature can effectively keep in touch with your loved ones and make passing out vital information more effortless with the Apple message app. This is useful in passing urgent information to multiple people at once. Also, you can use it to organize work-related seminars or get family and friends together to plan a future event.
Below is how to create an iPhone group chat with several participants:
Creating a Group Message
- Open the Messages app on your Apple device
- Start a new message by tapping the new message icon at the top on the right
- In the “To” field, enter the name of the contacts (your group members) to whom you want to send messages; you can tap the plus sign “+” to add contacts
- In the Text Message field, type the content of your message
- Then click on the arrow icon to send your message.
How to Name Group chats
You can name your group chat on any Apple device. It is advisable to do this if you have multiple iMessage groups. Follow these steps:
- Open the group chat messages.
- Tap the (i) icon.
- Enter the name of your group in the Name field.
Adding and Removing members to your group
You cannot remove and add members from an MMS/SMS group, as discussed earlier. The ‘add’ and ‘remove’ options are not available. But on the iMessage group, any group member can add others to the group. There is no admin system for a superior group member, which gives others more freedom.
Below are steps on how to add and remove members to the group:
Adding Members
To add participants to a group:
- Click on the Group messages to open the conversation
- Tap the top of the messages showing the group members’ and participants’ names.
- Click on the “i” info icon
- Then tap the “Add contact.”
- And then type in a new member’s contact in the “Add” field.
Removing Members
It’s possible to remove members from your iMessage. To remove a member from your iMessage group, follow the steps below:
- Tap the group messages again and then the info (i) icon
- Find the member’s contact you want to remove from the group and swipe left.
- Tap on the “Remove” button to altogether remove a member.
Conclusion
Today’s smartphones make communication easier, either with individuals or groups of people, with several features. One prominent feature is the group text available on Apple’s iPhone and other iOS devices. However, it’s easy to become overwhelmed with several messages from different groups to that you belong. This can necessitate you to search for ways to leave as many groups as possible. Thankfully, this piece teaches you to leave a group text on your iPhone. Also, you now know how to mute, create, add, and remove members from groups.
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