Can you turn a WhatsApp group into a community? How to link it

You cannot convert a group into a community, but you can link it to one. An admin of the group opens the community, chooses Add group, then Add existing group. The group keeps its members and history, and every member joins the community's announcement group. Only an admin of the group can do this, and other members can only suggest it.

What are the steps?

1. 1Open the community: in Chats, tap More options (Android) or More (iPhone), then Communities, and choose it.
2. 2Tap Add group, then Add existing group.
3. 3Select the groups you are an admin of and continue.
4. 4Review each group's permissions and whether it will be Visible or Hidden to community members.
5. 5Tap Add to community.

You can also start from the group: open it, tap its name, then Add group to a community, and pick New community or Existing community.

What changes for members?

• Every member of the group joins the community and its announcement group.
• Only community admins post in the announcement group.
• The group keeps its own chat and rules.
• Members can see other groups in the community, if they are set to Visible.

What can stop it?

• A group with pending join requests cannot be added until an admin deals with them.
• WhatsApp may block linking for a few hours, sometimes up to 24, after spam reports or when the group has recently added people.
• A community holds 2,000 members in total, counted across all its groups, so a few large groups can fill it.
• A community can link up to 100 groups.

Setting up a community from scratch is covered in creating a WhatsApp community; whether you need one is in community vs group.