You find Facebook group settings by opening the group, tapping the three dots or “More”, then choosing “Edit group settings”. On the app this sits under the group cover photo; on desktop browser it’s in the left menu below “Members”. From there you control privacy, membership approval, post permissions and notifications. I manage several groups this way weekly, and the layout stays nearly identical whether you’re on mobile, tablet or a laptop browser.
The short version: Facebook does not put your groups inside “Settings” at all, it puts them behind the main menu under a section simply called Groups, and where that sits depends on whether you’re on the app, the desktop site, or a mobile browser. Once you find it, you can see every group you’ve joined, every group you manage, and the individual notification and privacy controls for each one.
I get asked this more than almost any other Facebook question, usually by clients who swear they’ve “lost” a group they run. They haven’t lost it. Facebook has just moved the door again, and it’s in a different place on every version of the app.
On the Facebook app (iPhone and Android)
This is where most people get stuck, because the word “settings” doesn’t appear anywhere near your groups.
- Open the Facebook app and tap the three-line menu icon (top right on iPhone, sometimes top left on older Android builds)
- Look for “Groups” in the list, it usually sits near Marketplace and Events, not in a settings menu
- Tap it, and you’ll land on a screen split into tabs: Your Groups, Discover, and sometimes Feed
- Under Your Groups you’ll see every group you’ve joined, sorted by recent activity, not alphabetically
If you’re an admin, tap the specific group, then tap the three dots at the top right of that group’s page to reach group-level settings such as membership requests, notification frequency, and who can post.
On desktop (Facebook.com in a browser)
Desktop is more direct but Facebook still hides it one click deeper than it should be.
- Log into Facebook.com
- On the left-hand sidebar, scroll down past Marketplace and Watch until you see “Groups”
- Click it and you land on a page showing “Your Groups” with a left-hand list of every group, filterable by admin, member, and buy-and-sell groups
- Click the group name, then click the settings cog (not the three dots) if you’re an admin, to reach Group Settings for that specific group
Non-admins on desktop won’t see a cog at all, only a “Notifications” bell and a three-dot menu with options like unfollow or leave.
On mobile browser (Safari or Chrome, not the app)
This version confuses people because Facebook’s mobile site looks nothing like the app.
- Tap the menu icon, usually three lines at the bottom right on mobile web
- Scroll to “Groups” under the See More section
- Tap it, then choose “Your Groups” from the top tab bar
If you’ve ever switched to “Desktop site” mode inside your phone’s browser to find a setting that wasn’t showing on mobile, you’re not alone, that’s a common workaround for anyone managing a group from a phone during a busy period.
Why “Groups” isn’t under Settings at all
Here’s the bit most guides skip. Facebook’s actual Settings menu, the one with your password, ad preferences and account data, has nothing to do with your groups. Groups sit in their own navigation tier because Meta treats them as content you consume, not account infrastructure you configure. That’s a deliberate product decision, not an accident.
I found this out the hard way in 2023 while running a client’s Facebook group live during a launch. I needed to change who could approve new member requests, mid-event, on my phone, with about ninety seconds before a scheduled post went out. I went straight to Settings out of habit, found nothing, panicked slightly, then remembered it lives under the main menu, three taps deeper than it should be for something that urgent. It took me nearly four minutes to find a toggle that should take fifteen seconds. That’s the actual experience of managing groups on Facebook: the controls exist, they’re just not where a sensible person would put them.
The uncomfortable truth underneath that: Facebook doesn’t make group settings hard to find by mistake. Every extra tap through Discover, Feed, and suggested groups is another chance to show you content you didn’t ask for. The “Groups” hub isn’t a settings panel, it’s a feed with your actual group list buried inside it. If you manage more than two or three groups, you will lose time to this every single week, and no update in the last three years has fixed it.
What you can change once you find a group
Once you’re inside a specific group (not the Groups hub, the individual group page), the settings that matter split into two camps depending on whether you’re an admin or a member.
As a member, your options are limited to your own relationship with the group: turning notifications up or down, muting the group temporarily, or choosing to unfollow a group without leaving it if you want to stay a member for access reasons but stop the posts clogging your feed. That single option solved a genuine headache for a client of mine who was in eleven local business groups for networking reasons but only actively wanted content from three of them.
As an admin, the same menu opens up membership approval settings, post approval, group rules, and who can invite new members. This is also where you’ll find the tools covered in a related guide on posting content to a Facebook group without wasting the post, since scheduling and post visibility settings live in the same admin panel.
If your groups have taken over your profile
A separate but related problem: people don’t want their groups visible to everyone viewing their profile, especially for personal reasons like support groups or niche hobby communities they’d rather keep private. That’s not the same setting as the one above, and Facebook keeps this one somewhere else entirely, under your profile’s About section rather than the Groups hub. There’s a full walkthrough on how to hide Facebook groups from your profile if that’s what you’re trying to solve, because a surprising number of people land on “where are my group settings” when what they really mean is “why can everyone see I’m in this group.”
A note on groups that keep adding you back
Once you know where the settings live, you’ll also find the block option for group invitations, which sits under the same three-dot menu on any group page. If you’ve left a group and it keeps reappearing, or an admin keeps re-adding you, the fix isn’t in your account settings at all, it’s a specific block function covered step by step in the guide on how to block a group from adding you on Facebook. It’s a two-tap fix once you know it exists, and almost nobody does.
If you manage a group and can’t find admin tools
One thing worth knowing before you go hunting: Facebook only shows the admin cog if you’re logged in as the account that has admin rights, not just as a moderator. Moderators see a narrower version of the settings menu, missing membership approval controls and the ability to remove other admins. If you’ve ever been added as “admin” to a group and couldn’t find half the options this article describes, check your actual role first, tap the group name, then Members, then find your own name in the list. It will say Admin or Moderator next to it. That single distinction explains most of the “I can’t find this setting” messages I get.
Growing a group makes the settings maze worse, not better
If you’re actively trying to grow your Facebook group organically, be aware that the more members you add, the more settings multiply, membership questions, auto-approval rules, keyword filters for spam. What takes fifteen seconds in a fifty-member group takes several minutes in a five-thousand-member one, because Facebook adds extra confirmation screens for admin actions above certain size thresholds. Nobody tells you that until you hit it.
For the rest of the Facebook questions, see my Facebook guide.
Frequently asked questions
Why can’t I find Groups under Facebook Settings?
Because Facebook doesn’t put groups there. Groups sit in their own section of the main menu, separate from Settings, which only covers account, privacy and ad preferences, not the groups you’ve joined or manage.
How do I see all the groups I’ve joined on Facebook in 2026?
Open the main menu (three lines), tap Groups, then tap the “Your Groups” tab. This shows every group you’re a member of, sorted by recent activity rather than alphabetically, on both the app and desktop.
Why do my group settings look different on my phone than on my laptop?
Facebook runs three separate interfaces, the app, the desktop site, and the mobile browser site, and each one places the Groups menu and admin controls in a slightly different spot. The underlying settings are the same, only the navigation path changes.
Can I hide a specific group from showing on my profile without leaving it?
Yes, that’s a profile visibility setting, not a group setting, and it’s handled separately from your Groups hub through your profile’s About section, which controls what other people see when they view your page.
