The invention relates to a message prompting method and device. The method is applied to terminal equipment and comprises the following steps of judging whether a message prompting condition is met according to the attention characteristic for a group when a message from the group of instant messaging is received; and prompting the message when the message prompting condition is met, wherein the attention characteristic for the group is determined according to at least one of viewing frequency data and viewing time data for the group. According to embodiments of the invention, through determining the attention characteristic for the group according to at least one of the viewing frequency data and the viewing time data for the group, judging whether the message prompting condition is met according to the attention characteristic when the message from the group of instant messaging is received, and prompting the message when the message prompting condition is met, the intelligent promptof the received message is realized.