How to Create a Group Chat in Messages

Creating a Group Chat on Messages: What You Need to Know

Creating a group in Messages takes twenty seconds. Why blue and green bubbles decide what the group can do, and when to use another app instead.

Rose Fahey January 21, 2026

Creating a group in the Messages app on an iPhone takes about twenty seconds. What the group can actually do afterwards depends entirely on whether everybody in it uses an iPhone, and that catches people out.

How to Create One

Open Messages and tap the compose button at the top right.
Type the names or numbers of everyone you want in the To field.
Write the first message and send it. The group exists from that point.
To name it, tap the icons at the top, then the group name field. A named group is far easier to find later.

Blue or Green Changes Everything

If every member uses an iPhone, the group runs over iMessage and the bubbles are blue. If even one person is on Android, the whole group falls back to group MMS and the bubbles are green. The difference is not cosmetic.

What You Get in a Blue Group

Name the group and set a photo for it.
Add and remove members, as long as there are at least three other people.
Leave the group yourself.
Reply to a specific message in a thread.
Mention a member by name to alert them even if they have muted the group.
Full resolution photos and video, read receipts, typing indicators and end to end encryption.
Up to 32 participants.

What You Lose in a Green Group

No naming the group on older systems, no adding or removing members, and no leaving.
No threaded replies and no mentions.
Compressed photos and video, because MMS was never built for this.
No encryption.

That last set is why people end up stuck in a group chat they cannot leave. It is not a bug, it is the limit of the underlying messaging standard.

Before You Start the Group

Check whether everyone is on an iPhone. If not, and the group matters, use WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram instead. All three work the same on both platforms.
Name it immediately. Unnamed groups are impossible to find in a long message list.
Decide how long it should exist. Groups for a single event should be closed when the event ends.

RCS support has improved the situation for mixed groups on newer systems, with better media quality and typing indicators, but the management features above still depend on everyone being on the same platform.