How to Tag, Mention & Pin Messages in a WhatsApp Group

Tagging someone in a busy WhatsApp group is the fastest way to make sure they actually see your message instead of it vanishing into a wall of unread chats. If you want to know how to tag everyone in a WhatsApp group, mention one specific member, or pin an important message so it stays at the top of the chat, WhatsApp now has a real, official way to do all three — no third-party apps or awkward workarounds needed.

This guide covers all three, plus the group-size restriction most people don’t know about, why your pinned message might disappear on its own, and a few things worth knowing before you tag an entire group at 11pm.

What’s in this guide

• Mentioning a specific person in a group
• Tagging or mentioning everyone at once (@all)
• Pinning a message in a group chat
• Things to know before you tag or pin
• Frequently asked questions

How to mention one specific person in a WhatsApp group

This is the original mention feature and it’s been on WhatsApp for years, so it works on every current version of the app for Android and iPhone.

1. Open the group chat where the person you want to mention is a member.
2. Tap the message box and type the @ symbol.
3. A list of group members pops up above the keyboard. Start typing their name — you don’t need to type the whole thing, WhatsApp filters the list as you go.
4. Tap their name from the list. It gets inserted into your message, usually highlighted in blue.
5. Finish typing your message and hit send.

You can mention more than one person in the same message by repeating the @ step for each name. The people you mention get a notification even if they’ve muted the group, and their name shows up highlighted for them specifically when they open the chat — that’s what makes mentions more reliable than just typing someone’s name in plain text.

How to tag or mention everyone in a WhatsApp group (@all)

For a long time, there was no built-in way to tag every member of a group at once — people had to mention names one by one, or admins had to rely on Community announcement channels. That changed in August 2026, when WhatsApp officially rolled out an @all tag for group chats.

1. Make sure WhatsApp is updated to the latest version from the App Store or Google Play — older versions won’t show the option.
2. Open the group chat and tap the message box.
3. Type @ and look at the top of the suggestion list. Alongside individual member names, you should see @all.
4. Tap @all, write your message, and send.

Every member of the group gets a notification for that message — and this is the part that surprises people — even if they’ve muted the group. WhatsApp built @all specifically for time-sensitive messages like a school closure, a last-minute venue change, or a deadline, where a muted notification would defeat the purpose. If someone doesn’t want to be interrupted by @all specifically, they can turn it off separately in their notification settings without unmuting the whole group.

There’s one restriction worth knowing: in groups larger than 32 members, only admins can use @all. Smaller groups don’t have that limit — any member can tag everyone. If you’re in a large group and don’t see @all in your suggestion list at all, it’s most likely because you’re not an admin, not because the feature is broken.

If your app still hasn’t received the update and @all isn’t showing up yet, the closest fallback is mentioning members individually, or — if the group is part of a WhatsApp Community — posting in the Community’s Announcement channel, which reaches every member regardless of mute status.

How to pin a message in a WhatsApp group chat

Pinning keeps an important message (event details, a group rule, payment info, whatever people keep asking about) stuck at the top of the chat instead of getting buried after a few hundred new messages.

1. Open the group and find the message you want to pin.
2. Tap and hold the message (on both Android and iPhone).
3. From the menu that appears, tap the Pin icon.
4. Choose how long it stays pinned — WhatsApp gives you 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days. There’s no permanent option, so the message will automatically unpin itself once that period ends.
5. Confirm, and the message moves to a pinned banner at the top of the chat, visible to everyone.

By default, only group admins can pin or unpin messages. If you want regular members to be able to pin too, an admin needs to open the group name at the top of the chat, go into group settings, and enable the permission that allows all participants to edit group info and pin messages. When any message gets pinned, every member of the group receives a notification about it, so don’t pin something trivial just to test it — it’ll ping the whole chat.

You can pin up to three messages at a time in a single group. Pinning a fourth automatically unpins the oldest one.

Things to know before you tag or pin something

A few details trip people up more than the actual steps do:

• @all bypasses mute, so use it sparingly. It exists for genuinely urgent messages. Using it for casual chatter is the fastest way to get people to leave a group or turn off @all notifications specifically, which defeats the point for the next real emergency.
• The 32-member admin restriction is per-group, not per-account. You might be an admin in one group and a regular member in another — whether you see @all in that particular chat depends on your role there, not on your WhatsApp account overall.
• Pinned messages expire on their own. If people keep asking “where did the pinned message go,” check whether the 24-hour or 7-day window simply ran out — it’s not a bug, just re-pin it for longer.
• Mentions don’t work on numbers that aren’t saved as contacts in some regional versions of the app — if a name isn’t showing up in the @ list, that member may need to be saved in your phone’s contacts first.
• A muted @mention still shows the orange @ marker next to the chat in your list even though it doesn’t ring or notify loudly, so people who ignore muted groups can still spot that they were personally tagged.

Frequently asked questions

Does @all work for everyone, or only in some countries?

@all is a global rollout, not a regional beta — it works the same way on Android and iPhone worldwide, as long as your app is updated. If you don’t see it yet, update WhatsApp first; it’s rolling out gradually across app versions.

Can I remove myself from being tagged in a group?

Not directly — there’s no setting to opt out of mentions specifically. You can leave the group, or turn off notifications for @all in your notification settings so tags don’t override your mute, though your name will still appear highlighted in the chat when someone mentions you.

How do I unpin a message in a WhatsApp group?

Tap and hold the pinned message, then tap the unpin icon (it looks like a pin with a line through it, or an “Unpin” option in the menu). Only admins can do this unless the group’s permissions have been changed to allow all members.

Why can’t I see the @all option in my group?

Two common reasons: either your WhatsApp app hasn’t received the update yet, or the group has more than 32 members and you’re not an admin. Updating the app fixes the first; asking an admin to tag everyone fixes the second.

Is there a limit to how many people I can mention in one message?

No official cap on individual mentions in a single message beyond the group’s total member count, but for readability it’s rarely worth mentioning more than a handful of specific people — if you need to reach the whole group, @all does that in one tap.

If you’re the one running the group rather than just a member, it’s also worth reading how to keep a WhatsApp group active and engaging, and how to make or remove a group admin if you need to hand off pin and @all permissions to someone else. For general browsing, the Karachi WhatsApp groups directory is a good place to see these features used in busy, active chats.