WhatsApp has added several new features focused on improving groups and communities on its platform since late last year. Earlier this year, we saw the Meta-owned messaging giant add support for up to 32 users for group calls along with a new user interface. Additionally, we saw the company testing a new group survey feature and the ability to leave a group silent. And now, WhatsApp is developing another group-centric feature that will allow group admins to manually approve memberships. Here are the details!

According to a recent report by the reputed WhatsApp beta tracker WABetaInfo, the admin approval feature for membership was discovered in the latest WhatsApp Android beta version 2.22.14.6. With this update, WhatsApp has added new gender-neutral emojis and a new "Group Membership Approval" feature that prevents users from joining a WhatsApp group via an invitation link without the approval of the group admin.

This feature can be found in group settings where admins can enable or disable it for their WhatsApp groups. Once enabled, group members will receive a message notifying them that the group admin has enabled "admin approval" to join the group. You can check out a preview of the new feature in the screenshot below.

After enabling the new feature for a group, users who receive an invite link to join the WhatsApp group need manual approval from the group admins. In fact, admins will get a new dedicated section to handle incoming join requests from users on the group info page.