How to Pin Chats and Messages on WhatsApp

• WhatsApp on Android or iPhone

1. 01Pin a chat to the top of your listOn Android, press and hold the chat in the list until it is selected, then tap the pin icon in the top bar. On iPhone, swipe right on the chat and tap Pin, or press and hold and choose Pin. The chat moves to the top and stays there whatever arrives afterwards, marked with a small pin icon. Unpin the same way — the icon becomes an unpin.
2. 02Know the limit and work with itWhatsApp caps the number of chats you can pin — historically three, and raised since — and the app will tell you when you have reached it. The cap is deliberate: a pinned list of twenty is the same as no pinned list. Treat it as the handful of conversations you check daily rather than everything that matters, and unpin as things resolve.
3. 03Pin a message inside a chatThis is the other pin. Press and hold the message itself, then choose Pin from the menu — on some versions it is behind the three dots in that menu. WhatsApp asks how long the pin should last and offers a set of durations. The pinned message then shows in a bar at the top of that conversation for everyone in it, and tapping the bar jumps to the message.
4. 04Pin a message in a groupSame gesture, more useful. Press and hold the message and choose Pin. In a group this is the practical way to keep the meeting time, the address or the rules visible instead of repeating them every time someone scrolls past. Who is allowed to pin depends on the group’s settings — where a group is set so only admins can send or edit group info, pinning is limited to admins too.
5. 05Unpin, or let it expireA pinned message expires on its own at the end of the duration you chose, which is the feature working as intended — a pinned message nobody removed is how groups end up showing last month’s meeting time. To remove one earlier, tap and hold the pinned message or the bar at the top and choose Unpin. Unpinning removes it for everyone in the chat, not just for you.
6. 06What pinning does not doA pinned chat is not archived, muted or hidden — it still shows notifications normally and everyone in it sees nothing different. Pinning is entirely local to your phone: the other person has no idea you pinned them, and it does not sync to your other linked devices. Pinned messages are the opposite — those are visible to everyone in the conversation, which is the whole point.

• Pinning a chat is private to your phone; pinning a message is visible to everyone in the chat
• Set a realistic duration on a pinned message — an expired pin is better than a stale one
• In a group, pin the address or the timing rather than repeating it every week
• Unpinning a message removes it for the whole group, not only for you
• If pinning is greyed out in a group, the group is set so only admins can change group info

The conversations you actually use sitting at the top of the list, and the one message a group needs to see kept visible instead of buried.