Group chats can be a useful tool for making plans with several people at a time, organizing events, and keeping family members in the loop in one central place. It gives you and those who are a part of the chat a way to send messages for everyone to see without the need to relay information between multiple parties (like an old game of telephone, if you will). However, there will likely come a time when you decide you need to drop out of a particular group chat.
Maybe something came up and you can’t make it to the event everyone is attending, so you have no reason to hang around. Perhaps you simply don’t want to be in the chat anymore, or the sporadic notifications are becoming a nuisance.
Whatever the reason, if you decide it’s time to bow out of an iPhone group chat for any reason you have a couple of different options available—though depending on the circumstances it may not be possible to leave completely.
Muting a group chat
In the event that you don’t want to exit the group chat entirely but are tired of being inundated at a particular time, there is an alternative: Muting it. This will keep you in the chat but prevent notifications about new messages and other activity.
- From the Messages app, select the group message you want to mute.
- If you’re using iOS 15 and up, tap the Groups icon at the top of the message thread. If you’re using iOS 14 or lower, tap the Groups icon and then tap the Info button.
- Look towards the bottom of the menu (you may need to scroll down) and turn on the Hide Alerts toggle.
- Alternately, find the group message in the main Messages menu and swipe to the left, then tap the Alerts button to mute it.
Once a chat has been muted you can un-mute it by following the same steps. Muted conversations will display either an icon of a bell with a slash through it in iOS 15 and newer, or a crescent moon in iOS 14 and older.
How to leave group chats
It’s also possible that you have no reason to remain in a group chat, or that you have one of any number of other reasons for wanting to leave it. In which case:
- Open the Messages app and locate the group message you want to leave.
- Tap the group message, then (if you’re using iOS 15 and up) tap the Groups icon at the top of the thread. Or if you’re using iOS 14 or older, tap the Groups icon and then tap the Info button.
- Select Leave this Conversation at the bottom of the menu to leave the group chat.
Be aware that leaving group chats is only possible if everyone in the thread is using iMessage on an Apple device. If one or more of the people included is using something else, you won’t have the option to leave the chat. You’ll need to mute the conversation instead (see above).