How to Turn Off Automatic Approval in a Facebook Group

Tired of your Facebook Group turning into a free-for-all where every spammy post and questionable profile gets waved right through? Taking back control is easier than you think. This guide will walk you through exactly how to turn off automatic approvals for both new members and their posts. We'll cover the step-by-step process of adjusting your settings so you can become the gatekeeper your community deserves.

Why You Should Think Twice About Automatic Approvals

In the rush to grow a group, it’s tempting to let Facebook’s automation do all the heavy lifting. Flipping on automatic approvals feels efficient, but it often comes at a high cost to your community's health and safety. Gated access isn’t about being exclusive, it’s about being intentional. When you switch to manual approval, you gain several powerful advantages.

• Unbeatable Quality Control: This is the most significant benefit. Manual approval is your first and best defense against spammers, bots, and bad-faith actors. Every account that sends hate speech, drops scammy links, or promotes irrelevant products first had to get inside. By vetting each new member, you can protect your existing community from off-topic content and outright hostility. You get to maintain the culture and purpose you originally intended for the group.
• A Safer Environment for Members: An unmoderated group can quickly become a minefield. From pyramid schemes to phishing links disguised as helpful advice, automated systems can’t always catch the nuanced posts that put your members at risk. As an admin, you have a responsibility to foster a safe space. Manually reviewing posts and profiles is a direct way to uphold that commitment.
• Deeper Community Insights: The approval queue isn't just a chore, it’s a source of valuable data. Reviewing pending member profiles tells you who is trying to join your community. Are they your target audience? Are they coming from a specific region? Similarly, reviewing pending posts shows you what your members are interested in discussing. You can spot emerging trends, common questions, and content themes that can inform your entire social media strategy.

Imagine running a support group for first-time gardeners. If you leave approvals on auto-pilot, it might get flooded with posts selling miracle fertilizers or bots sharing unrelated videos. Genuine members looking for help with their tomato plants will feel ignored and leave. By turning off automation, you ensure the conversation stays on track, helpful, and valuable for everyone.

Part 1: How to Turn Off Automatic Member Approval

When you want to stop new members from being approved automatically, you’re usually dealing with a feature called "Admin Assist." This tool uses rules you’ve set up (or that were on by default) to automatically approve or decline requests. To stop it, you need to adjust those rules.

Step 1: Navigate to Your Admin Assist Settings

First, you need to find the control panel. The process is most straightforward on a desktop computer.

1. Go to your Facebook Group homepage.
2. On the left-hand menu, look for the "Professional tools" section. Click on Admin Assist. (On some layouts, this might be under "Moderation tools.")
3. This will open the Admin Assist dashboard, where you can see all your active automation rules for both members and posts.

Here, Facebook presents automation as a series of "if/then" recipes. For example, "If a person answers all membership questions, then automatically approve their request." Our goal is to remove or modify any rules that lead to an automatic "approve" action.

Step 2: Review and Disable Your Automatic Approval Rules

In the Admin Assist dashboard, you'll see different criteria for both approving and declining members. Focus on the ones that grant automatic entry.

• Look for criteria labeled "Approve member request if..." or something similar.
• Common auto-approve rules include criteria like:
  • Is friends with an existing member
  • Has had a Facebook account for a certain amount of time (e.g., 2+ years)
  • Lives in a specific country or city
  • Has joined a certain number of other groups
  • Answered all membership questions

To turn off automatic approvals completely, you must delete any rules that result in automatic approval. Click the three dots (...) next to a rule and select "Delete criteria" or "Edit criteria." While you could make the rules much stricter, the only way to ensure nothing gets by without your review is to have no automatic approval rules active. Once you delete them, all new join requests will land safely in your "Member Requests" queue to be reviewed by you or another admin.

Step 3: Turn On Membership Questions as Your New Filter

Now that requests are coming to you manually, you need an effective way to screen people. Membership questions are your best tool for this.

1. From your group, go to the moderation menu on the left and click on Membership Questions.
2. Write 2-3 simple questions that help you understand why someone wants to join. A great final question is an agreement to follow the group rules. Asking, "Did you read the group rules and do you agree to follow them?" forces a "yes" confirmation and weeds out people who don't care.
3. The answers to these questions will appear with each member request, giving you the context you need to make a quick and informed decision. People who don't bother to answer are an easy "decline."

Part 2: How to Turn Off Automatic Post Approval

By default, most Facebook Groups allow members to post content that goes live instantly. Turning off this "automatic" capability means enabling post approval, which sends every submission from members to a moderation queue for you to review first.

Step 1: Go to Your Group Settings and Enable Post Approval

This is the master switch that controls the flow of content in your group. This setting sounds backward, but to stop instant posting, you have to turn on post review.

1. On your group's main page, find the Settings option in the left-hand menu.
2. Scroll down to the "Manage Discussion" or "Manage Posts" section.
3. Find the setting called Post Approval or "Approve all member posts."
4. Toggle this feature ON.
5. A confirmation box might appear. Confirm your choice and save the changes.

Once you’ve enabled this, no post from a regular member will go live until an admin or moderator approves it. All of their submissions will appear in the Pending Posts queue, accessible from the left-hand admin menu. Note that posts from other admins and moderators will still go live instantly.

Step 2: Fine-Tune with Admin Assist for Posts

Just like with members, you can use Admin Assist to make your post moderation more efficient. Instead of auto-approving posts, you can use it to automatically decline common types of spam or rule-breaking content. This saves you from having to manually reject the obvious junk.

1. Go back to Admin Assist from your professional tools.
2. Look for criteria to "Decline incoming post if..."
3. Set up rules to automatically reject posts that clearly violate your standards. Good candidates for auto-rejection include posts that:
   • Contain certain keywords: You can create a list of terms common in spam or flame wars (e.g., "crypto," "MLM," specific slurs, etc.).
   • Contain a link: This is a powerful way to stop almost all spam, but it might be too strict for some groups. Use with care.
   • Are reported multiple times: You can set a rule to automatically remove a post if, for example, it gets reported by three or more members.

By setting up these "decline" rules, you allow Facebook's automation to handle the easy rejections, while thoughtful, genuine content lands in your queue for manual approval.

Making Manual Approval Work Without Burning Out

Switching to manual approval adds a new task to your plate, but it doesn't have to be overwhelming. With a smart system, you can manage the flow without spending all day in your moderation queues.

• Set a Moderation Schedule: You don't need to approve every post or member the second they appear. Dedicate specific blocks of time - say, 15 minutes in the morning and 15 in the evening - to clear out the queues. This prevents constant interruptions and lets you batch the work together.
• Build a Team: You don’t have to do it all yourself. Identify a few of your most active, positive, and knowledgeable group members and ask them to become moderators. You can grant them permission to approve members and posts, spreading the responsibility across a trusted team.
• Have Clear, Pinned Rules: Create a single, clear post with your group's rules and pin it as an announcement. This makes your expectations visible to everyone. When you have to decline a post or a member, you can often simply refer to a specific rule, which educates your community and reduces future moderation work.

Final Thoughts

Manually approving members and posts is one of the most effective things you can do to build a high-quality, safe, and engaged Facebook Group. By taking a few minutes to adjust your settings in Admin Assist and the main Group Settings, you shift from a reactive moderator to a proactive community builder. It’s an investment of time that pays dividends in culture and community health.

As your group grows, creating great content to keep the community active becomes just as important as moderating it. We know that managing a content schedule across multiple platforms can feel draining. With Postbase, we built a visual calendar that helps you plan and schedule everything for Facebook Pages, Instagram, TikTok, and more in one simple dashboard. We designed it so you can see your entire strategy at a glance, drag and drop posts to reschedule, and ensure your community always has something fresh to engage with, without the burnout that comes from juggling tabs and spreadsheets.