Toma Novakovic
Published on: May 2, 2025
Fact-checked by Eric Goldstein
GroupMe isn’t very suitable for young children or even pre-teens. Although it’s great for organizing groups, there are plenty of ways for your child to access or be exposed to inappropriate content. It also lacks age restrictions or parental controls, which means it’s tough to protect your child from potential risks.
The best way to keep your kid safe on GroupMe is with a parental control app. My top recommendation is Bark, because it can monitor your child’s GroupMe messages, images, and videos — and then alert you if it detects anything concerning.
What Are the Risks of GroupMe?
- Contact with strangers. Anyone in a group can add new members, meaning your child might end up interacting with people they don’t know. This raises the risk of encountering potentially dangerous individuals, such as predators, bullies, or scammers.
- Cyberbullying and harassment. Like any online space where users can communicate directly, GroupMe group chats can become breeding grounds for bullying. Abusive behavior, such as harassment, intimidation, or blackmail, can seriously harm your child’s mental health, self-image, and self-esteem.
- Inappropriate content sharing. GroupMe doesn’t moderate what users send in group chats, so your child could receive messages, images, GIFs, or videos that aren’t age-appropriate. Content like abusive language, violence, or explicit material can harm your child’s emotional well-being.
- Oversharing. Your child could accidentally (or intentionally) share private information, such as phone numbers, addresses, school details, or their real-time location.
- Digital footprint. GroupMe doesn’t have screenshot protection, so someone could make records of your child’s messages on the app and possibly use them for harmful purposes, like blackmail.
- Phishing & scam links. Anyone could share malicious links in GroupMe group chats, usually with tempting descriptions to try and get your kid to click — fake offers like digital currency for a video game are common. This can compromise your child’s info, as well as their device.
- No end-to-end encryption. GroupMe doesn’t use end-to-end encryption, unlike many other popular communication platforms. If GroupMe’s servers were ever breached, hackers could easily access all of your child’s messages.
- Excessive screen time. GroupMe’s convenience can lead your child to spend more time on their phone or computer. The more groups they join, the more notifications they’ll get, causing them to check their device constantly. This can disrupt their sleep and focus.
- Access to the internet. Some links in GroupMe open an in-app browser. This means that your child could browse the internet even if you have restrictions in place on the device’s main browser app.
What Age Is GroupMe Appropriate For?
GroupMe is okay for older teens, but generally unsuitable for younger children. The app follows Microsoft’s Terms of Use, so there isn’t a minimum age for creating an account.
Google’s Play App Store doesn’t give GroupMe an age rating, but rather a “Parental guidance recommended” warning. It singles out user interaction as the main risk because GroupMe is only as safe as its users make it.
On the other hand, the Apple App Store rates it as appropriate for users aged 12 and older. It also gives a warning about “infrequent or mild mature and suggestive themes”.
Considering the app doesn’t have any built-in moderation or parental controls, I wouldn’t recommend it for very young children. However, if you do allow your child to use it, make sure to always use parental controls or closely supervise their activity.
How to Keep Your Kids Safe on GroupMe
GroupMe isn’t kid-friendly, but your child can still use it safely if you take the right measures. Here are some tips and suggestions on what you can do to make sure your child has a safe experience on GroupMe.
1. Install a Good Quality Parental Control App
The best way to protect your child on GroupMe is by using a good parental control app, such as Bark. With Bark, you get:
- Message monitoring. Bark monitors your child’s GroupMe messages and checks them against its many alert categories, including Bullying, Sexual Content, Body Image/Eating Related etc. (you can choose which categories you want to receive alerts). If it detects content that falls into a monitored category, it immediately sends you an alert and a copy of the message.
- Daily scheduling. You can set it up so that the GroupMe app is accessible only during the times of day you choose — for example, you can block access to the app while your child is at school.
- Screen time management. Limit the time your child can spend on GroupMe or the phone each day.
- App filtering. If you don’t want your kid to use GroupMe, you can block the app entirely.
- Activity reports. Get more insight on how your child uses their device and how much time they spend on various apps, including GroupMe.
2. Teach Your Child How to Block Someone on GroupMe
The only effective moderation GroupMe has is the ability to block unwanted users. Talk to your child and let them know that it’s okay to block anyone who harasses, threatens, or makes them feel uncomfortable. It’s very simple:
- In the bottom right corner of the GroupMe app, tap your child’s profile.
- Tap Contacts.
- In the search box, type the name of the contact you want to block.
- Tap the contact, and then tap the three dots.
- Tap Block. If prompted to confirm, tap Block again.
3. Show Your Child How to Report Problematic Behavior
GroupMe has a reporting feature that lets your child report messages, contacts, and whole groups for abuse. The process is pretty much the same on Windows, Android, and iOS, and it takes only a couple of steps:
Reporting a message
- Right-click (or tap and hold) the message you want to report
- Select Report a concern.
- Here, you can choose the type of concern and any additional comments about the message.
- Select Send.
Reporting a contact
- Select Contacts. On mobile, you’ll find this section under More.
- Find the offending contact, and then select Report a concern.
- Choose the offending behavior, and type in additional comments about the contact’s behavior.
- If you want to, set the toggle to Also block to block the contact.
- Select Send.
Reporting a group
- Click or tap on the profile picture of the group you want to report.
- Select Report a concern. On mobile, this option is in Settings.
- Choose the kind of behavior you want to report, and you can also type in any added comments about the group behavior.
- Select Send.
4. Help Your Child Regulate Group Permissions
One layer of safety you can implement for your child is changing group permissions. These permissions include the ability to change other group settings, as well as add or remove members from the group. However, this is only available if your child is the owner of the group. Here’s how to do it:
- Go to the group chat you want to change permissions for.
- Tap the group’s picture.
- Tap the gear icon to open Settings.
- Tap Permission.
- Here, choose between “Everyone can edit” or “Admin only”.
Setting permissions to “Everyone can edit” means that all users in the group can manage members and edit the group’s settings, while “Admin only” restricts that to the group’s administrators.
5. Prevent Unwanted Former Members From Rejoining Groups
GroupMe gives group owners the ability to stop former members from rejoining a group they left. That way, if your child has their own group (or if you are the owner of a group your child is in), they can prevent any unwanted users from coming back to harass them. Here’s how to do it:
- Go to the group chat.
- Tap the group’s picture.
- Tap Members.
- In the pop-up menu, tap Members who left.
- Tap Block next to the name of each former member you want to stop from joining the group again.
6. Talk to Your Child About Online Privacy
It’s crucial to teach your child how to stay safe online, especially on platforms like GroupMe. Here are some key points you should cover with them:
- Only add real-life friends. Explain how not everyone online is honest and upfront about who they are and what they want. Adding strangers to group chats can cause some uncomfortable situations.
- Pay attention to personal information. Remind your kid to be careful not to share information, such as their location, when texting or sending photos.
- Encourage open and honest communication with your child. Reassure your kid that they can talk to you if someone on GroupMe makes them upset or uncomfortable.
7. Get a Good Antivirus
An antivirus is another good layer of protection you can use to protect your child on GroupMe. Because GroupMe has a problem with fake accounts and spambots sending malicious links, your child could end up accidentally clicking on such a link and compromising their device with malware.
I suggest getting a high-quality antivirus like Norton to protect your kid’s device in case they accidentally open a malicious link. You should also teach your child to be suspicious of bot accounts, spam, and unusual links, especially if the link they open asks for any personal information.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does GroupMe have built-in parental controls?
No, GroupMe doesn’t have any real parental controls or significant content moderation. Mature GIFs are readily available in the group chats, and the only way to handle problematic users is to block them.
If you let your child use GroupMe, I recommend getting a good parental control app to make their experience on the app safer. A high-quality parental control app like Bark can monitor your child’s group chats and warn you if it detects anything concerning.
Can I monitor my child’s GroupMe messages?
You can, to an extent. However, you’d have to use Bark, which is among our top parental control apps for 2025.
Bark monitors messages that your child sends and receives over GroupMe, and then it uses advanced machine-learning algorithms to check if the messages fall into any of the content categories you have set alerts for. These categories cover points like Bullying, Anxiety, Depression, Hate Speech, Sexual Content, Drug/Alcohol Related, and many others.
If Bark detects messages that would fall into a category you’ve set it to check for, it will immediately alert you and show you a copy of the offending message. However, Bark doesn’t let you see all of your kid’s GroupMe messages, so you can let your child maintain some privacy and still be able to respond if something concerning pops up.
Is GroupMe okay for my 12-year-old child?
Probably not. GroupMe doesn’t have a minimum age requirement in its Terms of Service, so it’s mostly up to you to evaluate your child’s level of maturity and responsibility and decide if they should start using online messaging apps like GroupMe.
Considering the risks associated with the app, I’d only consider letting pre-teens use it with close supervision, which is what you can get with a good parental controls app like Bark.
Is there explicit content on GroupMe?
There are many GroupMe groups where explicit content is available. Also, your kid can easily find inappropriate content by searching through GIFs. Ultimately, there’s nothing preventing someone from sending your child explicit content.
Fortunately, there are some steps you can take to increase your kid’s safety on GroupMe. This includes getting a good parental control app like Bark, which will alert you if it detects concerning content, as well as teaching your child how to block and report unwanted users.
