How to See Responses on Google Forms

How to view responses in Google Forms

Every response lives in the form itself, whether or not you ever link a spreadsheet. To check Google Forms responses:

1. Go to forms.google.com and open the form. You need to be the owner or an editor.
2. Click the Responses tab at the top. The total number of responses shows first.
3. Pick one of the three views below.

The Summary charts update as responses arrive. For long text answers, the Summary view can list only the most recent ones, so use the Question view or a spreadsheet to read them all.

How to see who responded

Google Forms only knows who responded if the form asked. To record it for new responses:

1. Open Settings and expand Responses .
2. Set Collect email addresses to Verified (the respondent's Google account, so they must sign in) or Responder input (they type it in themselves).

After that, the email shows at the top of each Individual response and as a column in the linked sheet. Responses that came in before you turned it on stay anonymous; there is no way to recover who sent them. A "Name" question does the same job without asking anyone to sign in, but people can type anything into it.

See responses in Google Sheets

A spreadsheet is the easiest way to sort, filter and share responses, and it fills itself as new ones arrive.

1. On the Responses tab, click Link to Sheets .
2. Create a new spreadsheet or pick an existing one, then click Create or Select.

Each response becomes a row, with a Timestamp column first and one column per question. Edits you make in the sheet don't change the responses stored in the form. To send responses somewhere else later, use Select destination for responses in the More menu; Unlink form stops new rows arriving but keeps the ones already there.

Download or print Google Form responses

Both options sit in the three-dot More menu on the Responses tab:

• Download responses (.csv) saves every response as a CSV file that opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. For an Excel file, link the responses to Google Sheets and use File, Download, Microsoft Excel.
• Print all responses opens a printable page with every submission. Choose "Save as PDF" in the print dialog to get a PDF instead of paper.

Both are greyed out until the form has at least one response. Delete all responses, at the bottom of the same menu, cannot be undone, so download a copy first.

Get an email for every new response

1. On the Responses tab, open the three-dot More menu.
2. Click Get email notifications for new responses.

The email only says a response arrived and links to it. It doesn't include the answers, and it goes only to the account that switched it on; each editor has to turn it on for themselves. To email the full answers to several people, our free Google Forms email notifications tool builds a ready-to-paste script. To email respondents a copy of their own answers, use response receipts.

Send response receipts to respondents

A response receipt is an email that gives the person who filled in the form a copy of their own answers. It's how respondents "see their response" later, because Google Forms keeps no history of forms someone submitted.

1. Open Settings and expand Responses .
2. Next to Send responders a copy of their response, choose When requested (respondents tick a box to get one) or Always.

The form has to collect email addresses for this to work, since the receipt needs somewhere to go. Receipts sometimes land in spam, and Google holds some back as an anti-abuse measure, so don't rely on them for anything important. For a branded confirmation with your own wording, see how to send a confirmation email from Google Forms.

Check Google Form responses on your phone

Google Forms has no phone app. Open forms.google.com in your phone's browser, sign in, open the form and tap Responses. Summary, Question and Individual all work on a small screen. If you've linked a spreadsheet, the Google Sheets app is easier for scrolling through a long list.

Why Google Form responses are not showing

Where Google Forms responses stop

The Responses tab is fine for reading answers. It gets harder when each response is a job to do: an order to pack, an application to review, a booking to confirm. Google Forms gives you a spreadsheet and leaves the rest to you.

In FormNX every submission lands in one response table where you can view, edit or delete it on the free plan. On Pro you can export the table as CSV, Excel or PDF, sync it to Google Sheets, and turn each response into a formatted PDF with the PDF builder, which is handy for invoices, certificates and intake forms.

Pro also adds response statuses. You name your own stages, such as Received, Preparing and Ready, set a response's status in one click from the table, and FormNX can email the respondent a message tied to that status. The order form tells the customer it's ready without anyone opening Gmail.

Moving a form across? The Google Forms alternative page compares the two in full.