GroupMe App Review

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What is GroupMe?

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GroupMe is a free group-messaging app owned by Microsoft. It launched in 2010 and became especially popular with sports teams, clubs, college classes, youth groups, and friends who wanted a simple way to communicate outside of texting.

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Think of it as a large group text message that doesn’t require everyone to have the same phone type or even a smartphone. GroupMe works across iPhones, Android devices, web browsers, and users can even receive messages via traditional SMS texting.

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Schools, coaches, student organizations, and even some jobs use  GroupMe instead of iMessage, WhatsApp, or Discord since it’s easy to join and doesn’t require sharing phone numbers with everyone.

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The app is rated 13+ in the App Store, but many younger students use it because an adult (coach/teacher/leader) creates the group. Young kids interacting with any adult in a digital space (even their coach) can be a great risk.

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How Does GroupMe Work?

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GroupMe revolves around group chats. One person creates a group and invites others using:

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A phone number, a username, a QR code, or a shared join link.

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Once inside, members can send text messages, share photos, videos, GIFs, links, react with emojis, create polls, direct message individuals privately, share locations, and mute or leave conversations.

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Messages stay in the group even when someone new joins. New members can scroll back and read past conversations. Which is helpful for work related groups were previous messages might be important.

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GroupMe does not require you to share your personal phone number with the whole group, but users can still privately message each other once inside.

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What Do Parents Need to Know About GroupMe?

GroupMe Contains Backdoors to the Internet

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There’s a hidden internet search bar, if you dig deep enough into the Privacy Policy and a few other places, if you know where to look. This means you can search the web without ever leaving the app. Unlike other apps, where a Google search bar is typically found, in this case, it’s either a Bing or MSN search, which doesn’t obey Apple’s Content Restrictions you might have set up on the phone.

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This can lead to sexual content and all sorts of other risks.

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That’s a big problem, and it means that CleanBrowsing or another router-level filter is necessary for any home network that has kids using this app.

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Massive GroupMe Chats Increase Risk

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Many school or team chats start appropriately.

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But they often grow into off-topic conversations, late-night messaging, inside jokes, teasing, drama, exclusion, and cyberbullying.

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Because dozens of students can be in one chat, GroupMe has potiental to become a 24/7 social environment.

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Unlike classroom tools (Google Classroom, Remind), adults often stop monitoring after the group is created.

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GroupMe Has Private Messaging

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Even if a child joins only for a sports team or club, students can privately message each other one-on-one after joining the group.

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This creates risk for bullying, harassment, unwanted contact, older teens messaging younger kids

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Parents often believe, “My child only uses it for baseball.” But GroupMe quietly turns into a private social network.

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GroupMe Links Spread Quick

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Groups are commonly joined through a shareable link or QR code.

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If that link gets posted on Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, or another group chat, then friends of friends and even strangers can enter the conversation easily.

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This could lead to unknown teens, or even adults, entering school and sport related group chats without approval.

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GroupMe Chat History Never Disappears

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We like this because it offers a sense of accountability to thethings others are saying. However, it also means that if anyone says something harmful, hurtful, explicit, offensive, vulgar, etc - it can be found later. What you say on Groupme, stays on GroupMe.

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Even when a new person joins a group, they too, are able to scroll back and viewc conversations from when they weren't in that group chat.

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GroupMe Chats Send Many Notifications

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GroupMe is notorious for hundreds of messages per day, late-night conversations, pressure to respond instantly.

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Many students keep their phones nearby overnight because they don’t want to miss social activity. At Protect Young Eyes, we highly recommend removing all devices from bedrooms at night. The combination of bedrooms, boredom, and darkness creates what we call the "toxic trio," where almost anything sounds like a good idea.

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Please avoid it!

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How to Make GroupMe Safer:

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Regardless of the app, three actions mitigate the risks we’ve shared. We teach these actions in our parent presentations:

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1. Require approval for all app downloads.
2. Follow the 7-Day Rule
3. Enable in-app controls and settings

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We explain each of them briefly below. If you’ve already set up approvals for downloads and have used the app, please skip to the In-App Controls & Settings.

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Require Approval for App Downloads

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You can control app stores by requiring permission for apps to be downloaded. This is ensures your child doesn’t have access to an app without your knowledge. Here are the steps (for Apple and Android users):

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For Apple Devices:

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To require permission to download an app, you’ll need to set up Screen Time and Family Sharing (Apple’s Parental Controls). We explain this process step-by-step in our Complete iOS Guide (click here).  

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Once Screen Time and Family Sharing are established, here’s how to require permission to download apps on an Apple device:

1. Go to your Settings app.
2. Select your Family.
3. Select the person you want to apply this setting to.
4. Scroll down to “Ask to Buy” and enable.

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For Android Devices:

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You’ll have to use Family Link (Android’s parental controls) to ensure you retain control over what apps are downloaded. We explain this process step-by-step in our Android Guide (click here).

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Once Family Link is established, here’s how to require permission to download apps on an Android device:

1. Go to the Family Link App
2. Select the person you want to apply this setting to.
3. Select “Google Play Store”
4. Select “Purchases & download approval” and set it to “All Content.”

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Follow the 7-Day Rule

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This is our tried-and-true method of determining whether a specific app is safe for your specific child.

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Before you let your child use it, download the app and use it for 7 days.

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Create an account with your child’s age and gender and use it for 7 days. Play through a few levels, review the ads, see if anyone can chat with you, and poke around like a curious child.

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After a week, ask yourself, “Do I want my child to experience what I did?”  Even if you decide to allow them to download the app, now you have a basis for curious conversations about the app when you check in.

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Enable In-App Controls & Settings

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GroupMe has very limited parental controls, so safety comes from adjusting settings and setting expectations.

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Make GroupMe Profiles Private

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In the app:

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Profile → Settings → Privacy

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Turn on:

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• Private Groups Only (prevents random group adds)
• Hide Phone Number (important)

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Control GroupMe Contacts

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Only accept group invites from known adults, leave any group your child doesn't recognize, and remind your kid to never click random GroupMe links.

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Turn Off GroupMe Location Sharing

Inside a chat, users can share their location.

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Make sure your child never uses location sharing in groups.

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Manage GroupMe Notifications

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Constant notifications from a group of 25+ people can be exhausting. Here's how to manage notifications in GroupMe:

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Settings → Notifications. Theny you can mute large groups, turn off late-night notifications, or use phone-level Downtime/Screen Time settings overnight. Better yet, get devices out of bedrooms at night!

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This is one of the most helpful safety steps.

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Set Family Expectations for GroupMe

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Because there are no strong parental controls, this matters most:

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Set rules such as:

• No private messaging people you don’t know in real life
• No joining unofficial school chats
• Show a parent the group when first joining
• Phone stays outside the bedroom overnight

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Use Bark to Monitor GroupMe:

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Bark can monitor the GroupMe app if you link your child’s account to Bark. Bark’s uses algorithms to look for a variety of potential issues, such as cyberbullying, sexting, drug-related content, and signs of depression. If a potential issue is detected, a text/email alert is sent to you to review the issue, along with recommended actions on how to handle the situation.

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Bottom Line: Is GroupMe Safe for Kids?

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GroupMe is risky because it quickly transforms from a communication tool into an unsupervised social network.

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For elementary and middle school students, GroupMe often becomes overwhelming socially and emotionally.

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For high school students, it can be appropriate with if you follow the steps above.

What if I have more questions? How can I stay up to date?

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Two actions you can take!

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1. Subscribe to our tech trends newsletter, the PYE Download. About every 3 weeks, we’ll share what’s new, what the PYE team is up to, and a message from Chris.
2. Ask your questions in our private parent community called The Table! It’s not another Facebook group. No ads, no algorithms, no asterisks. Just honest, critical conversations and deep learning! For parents who want to “go slow” together. Become a member today!

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