How to Get Email Notifications from Google Forms

How to get email notifications from Google Forms

Google Forms can send an email when a form is submitted, every time. It's one setting, and it's off until you switch it on.

1. Open your form and click the Responses tab.
2. Click the three dots at the top right of the response summary.
3. Click Get email notifications for new responses.
4. Open the same menu again and check for a tick next to it.

Step 4 is worth the extra click. The menu closes the moment you choose the setting, with no message. The tick is the only sign that it's on.

What the built-in email does and doesn't do

The built-in alert is a heads-up, not a report. It tells you a response came in and links to it.

So you still open the form to see what anyone said. To get the answers in your inbox, or to alert a team, Google Forms needs an add-on.

Send the respondent a copy of their response

This is a separate setting. Google calls it a response receipt: the person who filled in the form gets their own answers by email.

1. Click the Settings tab.
2. Open Responses.
3. Set Collect email addresses to Verified or Responder input.
4. Set Send responders a copy of their response to When requested or Always.

Do step 3 first. Until Collect email addresses is on, the receipt option is greyed out at Off, with the note "Requires Collect email addresses".

"When requested" adds a tick box the respondent can choose. "Always" sends a copy to everyone. A custom thank-you email is a different job, covered in our guide to Google Forms confirmation emails.

Send Google Forms notifications to multiple emails

The built-in alert has no box for other addresses. You have three ways round that.

• Make them editors. Click Share and add each person as an editor. Each editor can then switch on the alert in their own account, as above.
• Forward it with a Gmail filter. Filter the alert emails in your inbox and forward them to a team address. Gmail asks you to confirm the forwarding address first, and the team still doesn't get the answers.
• Use an add-on or a script. An add-on can email several people the full answers. Our free Google Forms email notifications script generator writes an Apps Script that does the same, with no add-on to install.

Making people editors also lets them change the form and delete responses. For a manager who only needs the alerts, a filter or an add-on is safer.

Email notification add-ons for Google Forms

An email notification add-on fills the gaps in the table above. It can put the answers in the email, reach several people and write to the respondent. These are the most installed ones.

Google's own help page points to Form Notifications for "more notifications options". Install the Forms add-ons from the three dots, then Get add-ons. Form Mule installs from the linked Sheet instead. Other kinds of add-on are compared in our guide to Google Forms add-ons.

Example: a workshop sign-up

Say 40 people sign up for a workshop and three organisers need to know.

• Built-in alert: each organiser becomes an editor and switches it on. Every alert says only that a response came in.
• With an add-on: one rule sends all three organisers the name and email from each sign-up. A second rule thanks the person who signed up.

How to turn off Google Forms email notifications

Open the Responses tab, click the three dots and click Get email notifications for new responses again. The tick disappears and the emails stop.

The setting belongs to your account, so turning it off doesn't affect other editors. An add-on's emails are separate. Turn those off inside the add-on, or uninstall it.

Fix common problems with Google Forms email notifications

Tips for email notifications that help

• Test with your own submission. Fill in the form once from a private window. You see exactly what arrives, and how fast.
• Give the form a clear title. The alert names the form. "Form 3" in your inbox tells you nothing.
• Make a Gmail filter on day one. On a busy form, alerts bury everything else. Label them so they sit in one place.
• Turn alerts off on forms you no longer watch. While a form stays open, every stray response still lands in your inbox.

Where Google Forms email notifications stop

The built-in alert tells one person that something happened. Anything more needs an add-on or another form builder.

In FormNX the email notification is part of the form. On the free plan it lists every answer and goes to every address you add. It can also go out through your own SMTP server.

Custom email wording, an email to the respondent and a PDF attachment are on paid plans.

To compare the two builders in full, see the Google Forms alternative page.