Steps to make a Google Form Public
- Open the form in Google Forms
- Click Settings, then Responses
- Toggle all options to the off position
- Click the Send button
- Choose how you’d like to share your Google Form
- Click on the Responses tab to see feedback
One of the most popular and reliable ways to collect feedback quickly from a large number of people is to create an online survey using a tool like Google Forms. But to collect the responses you’re looking for, you’ll need to know how to make a Google Form public. Otherwise, potential respondents simply won’t be able to access it.
To avoid this inconvenience, you need to know how to share your forms and surveys with customers, fans, and anyone willing to give you useful information. Bringing in new perspectives can help you better understand your target demographics, including what they’d like to see from your particular product or service.
Luckily, you can gather this valuable intel once you learn how to make a Google Form public.
Why make a Google Form public?
Making your Google Form public helps you remove accessibility barriers and open it up to a larger pool of respondents with new, unique perspectives. It’s an easy, seamless, safe way to share your form or survey with others to collect valuable feedback.
That said, while your respondents can fill out your public Google Form, they won’t be able to edit the form itself or make any changes to its content.
How to make a Google Form public — and share it
Now that you know why you should make a Google Form public, let’s learn how to actually do it.
- Open the form you’d like to make public in Google Forms. (If you haven’t yet created one, you need to do that first.)
- Under the Settings tab, click on Responses.
- Under Requires Sign In, toggle all options to the off position, including Limit to 1 response.
- To share the form, click the Send button in the top right.
- Choose how you’d like to share your Google Form:
- Email: This method enables you to include a subject line and message with your invitation to fill out the form. You can also embed the form itself in the email.
- Link: If you’d like to share your form via link, Google Forms will generate a custom link for your form, allowing anyone with the link to fill it out — on any channel.
- Embed HTML: Using the embed option, you can copy an HTML code to embed your form directly onto a web page for people to fill out.
- Social media: This method allows you to share your form directly on Twitter or Facebook.
- Finally, you can track and manage your responses in Google Sheets by clicking on the Responses tab followed by the green spreadsheet icon.
How to add collaborators
In certain cases, you may want fellow colleagues or collaborators to be able to edit and change the actual form, like if you’re creating and optimizing a customer feedback form with members of your team.
To do this, you’ll need to learn how to add collaborators:
- Click the three dots next to the Send button at the top right of the screen. This will open a new menu.
- Choose the Add collaborators option.
- Under the General access section, you should see some link-sharing options:
- Restricted (“Only people with access can open with the link”): Using this option, you can specify exactly who can make changes to your form by adding their email addresses to the Add Editors section.
- The name of your organization (“Anyone in this group with the link can edit”): With this method, you can give access only to people in your organization, like if your company has its own Google Workspace account.
- Anyone with the link (“Anyone on the internet with the link can edit”).
How to make a Google Form public but not editable
As we mentioned previously, sharing your Google Form via a link or embedding it in your website allows respondents to fill it out but not edit it. The only ways for recipients to edit or make changes directly to your Google Form are if you
- Specifically add them as a collaborator
- Add them as an editor when sending the form via email
As long as you don’t add recipients as an editor or collaborator, you don’t have to worry about them editing the form — even if it’s public.
An alternative way to set up customizable access
If you need more functionality than Google Forms provides, you can look into alternative form builders like Jotform. These platforms often have robust settings to control access to your form.
With Jotform, you can set forms to be publicly accessible, available only to those with the link, and even available to everyone at the same email domain address (like a company email). This is possible with Jotform’s Form Builder, which allows you to choose the appropriate setting from the Access Settings menu — whether that’s public, invite only, or company access.
Collecting feedback from your audience is crucial, regardless of your industry or organization type. To do that effectively, you need to make sure your surveys and questionnaires are accessible to your intended audience.
See also Jotform’s detailed guide about: Google Forms
This article is originally published on Apr 08, 2022, and updated on Jan 26, 2023.
FAQs
How do I make a Google Form public for responses? ›
- Open a form in Google Forms.
- At the top of the form, click Settings.
- Next to “Responses,” click the Down arrow .
- Turn off Restrict to users in [yourdomain.com] and its trusted organizations.
- You cannot customize the notification email sent to form respondents. ...
- Email address will be the first field in the form if response receipts is enabled.
- Open a form in Google Forms.
- In the top right, click More .
- Click Add collaborators.
- Click "Invite people."
- In the "Add editors" window, add email addresses to share it with others.
- Click Send.
You can see that JotForm is a lot more versatile than Google Forms. There are more settings for each field, and the range of fields is more useful. And JotForm has a library of 100+ integrations for payment processors, CRMs, and digital signatures.
Can everyone see responses to a Google Form? ›When you create a Google Form, anyone who gets the link is able to submit answers to the questions, but not see the responses or edit the form.
Why is my Google Form not accepting responses? ›With Google Forms, you won't necessarily be publishing or unpublishing the form. Instead, you can toggle between “Accepting responses” and “Not accepting responses.” This is essentially an on/off switch for your form. Look for it directly under the Responses tab at the top of your form.
How do I create a dynamic question in Google Forms? ›Create or open the form you want to use with Dynamic Fields. Either write the question you want to map data to or decide which one you want to use. Click on the add-on icon (the puzzle piece) at the top of the form, then select Dynamic Fields. Select Create mapping.
Can Google Forms be automated? ›Automate Google Forms with simple code
Anyone can use Apps Script to automate and enhance Google Forms in a web-based, low-code environment. Automate tasks based on Google Form submissions. Create Google Forms based on a spreadsheet.
All free users of the Google Forms add-on can send up to 20 form responses per day. Please note that this sending limit is based on “email recipients per day” rather than on form responses.
Can multiple people receive Google Form responses? ›With Email Notifications for Google Forms, you can send automatic emails to multiple people when a new form is submitted. The email can contain a copy of the entire form response or you use dynamic form fields to insert answers to specific questions in the email message.
How many people can fill out a Google Form? ›
The 5 million cell limit will be the one to watch out for. So if you have 1 question on your form you can have 5 million responses... 2 questions= 2.5 million responses...etc.
What are the limitations on Jotform? ›Free Plan – the limit is to 1,000 form views per month. Bronze Plan – the limit is set to 10,000 form views per month. Silver Plan – the limit is set to 100,000 form views per month. Gold Plan – the limit is set to 1,000,000 form views per month.
What are the disadvantages of Google Forms? ›Disadvantages of using Google forms
It is necessary to have internet to be able to use this tool. The design customization is very limited. Advanced users can change the design to use the tool with a greater number of purposes. There are some security concerns.
We do not have a list of compatible browsers, but our service should work properly in any up to date browser. We generally recommend Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer 11+, and Safari (on Mac).
How to share Google Form responses with others without edit? ›Instead of adding your team members as collaborators in Google Forms, you can sync the form responses to Google Sheets and then add them as collaborators in Google Sheets. This will allow you to share google forms responses without edit permissions.
Can the owner of a Google Form see who viewed it? ›If someone has been invited to view or edit the document, the Viewers tab will tell you the last time they opened it. You can also click All Viewers to see everyone from your organization who has viewed the document, whether they were invited or clicked a shareable link.
Can the owner edit responses in Google Forms? ›Form owners or collaborators can edit the form anytime. When designing the form, they can also enable the edit after submit option in google forms and allow form respondents to edit their submitted responses.
Can you do branching in Google Forms? ›Google Forms has a form builder that allows you to easily add questions to your form. However, what if you wanted different questions responded to by different users? To do this, you can create branching, so the user is routed to different sections of the form based on their answers.
Do Google Forms ever expire? ›Any quiz, poll or survey created inside Google Forms has no expiration date and it can collect unlimited number of responses until the form owner decides to manually close* the form. For some Google Forms though, limits may be necessary.
Can Google Forms be dynamic? ›Dynamic Fields Add-on for Google Forms™ populates values of selection fields. Questions of type Multiple-choice, Drop-down, Checkbox or Grid can be updated by data from Sheets, Contacts or Groups. Create in Google Forms™ dynamic choice boxes.
Can you create a workflow in Google Forms? ›
With the Form Approvals add-on, you can turn your Google Form into an interactive approval workflow! As an example, you could turn a simple Time-Off Request Form into an approval workflow, where it routes to an employee's Line Manager for approval and notifies the employee once it has been approved.
How do I send a Google form to a large group? ›- Open a form in Google Forms.
- In the top right, click Send.
- At the top of the window, click Link .
- To copy the link that appears, click Copy or press Ctrl + c (Windows) or ⌘ + c (Mac) on your keyboard.
When you fill out a Google Form in your Google account, your progress is automatically saved as a draft for 30 days. This means if you can't complete a form or need to switch devices, you don't have to start over the next time you open the form. Important: If you're offline, autosave doesn't work.
Can Google form respondents submit more than one response? ›Google Forms' default setting allows your respondents to submit a form many times. This might result in multiple responses from the same person.
How to make Google Form responses go to multiple email addresses? ›- Step 1: Enable saving form submissions to a Google Sheet. You can easily turn on saving form submissions to a Google sheet. ...
- Step 2: Share the Google Sheet with the recipients. ...
- Step 3: Subscribe to new Form submissions.
Select the "Responses" tab for the Google Form. Click the Google Sheets icon near the top of the page to open the responses Google Sheet. Click the "Share" button in the top-right corner of the Google Sheet. Add the people you'd like to share the responses with and click "Send"
Is SurveyMonkey or Google Forms better? ›Advanced features: SurveyMonkey offers more advanced survey features and robust data analysis tools than Google Forms in their paid plans. 24/7 email support: SurveyMonkey offers comprehensive customer support options, including live chat, phone support, and email support.
Is Google Forms free vs paid? ›Google Forms is free for individual use, including 15GB of storage per user. The product also comes as part of the comprehensive Google Workspace package, which is priced as follows: Business Starter: $6 per user per month. Business Standard: $12 per user per month.
Does someone have to have Google to fill out a Google form? ›By default, Google Forms don't collect email addresses. This is useful because people can respond anonymously and because people don't need a Google account to fill out your form.
What happens when you publish a Jotform? ›When you publish your online form, you'll have the option to use it as a standalone link, or to embed it directly into your website. Embedding simply requires you to copy and paste the embed code we provide.
Is Jotform really anonymous? ›
Like Microsoft Forms, Jotform lets you create anonymous surveys. Unlike Microsoft Forms, Jotform doesn't require you to dive into the form's settings or have a paid account to ensure anonymity.
What percentage does Jotform take? ›Save money with Jotform
Jotform integrates with PayPal, Stripe, Square and more. Plus, Jotform never takes a percentage of the ticket price and never charges a per-ticket fee. You can choose your preferred payment processor, keeping in mind that most charge a 2.9% processing fee.
One of the key benefits of Microsoft Forms is its branching logic feature, which you can use to send respondents to different questions based on their answers to previous questions. This way, users only see questions that are relevant to them.
Can you limit number of responses on Google Forms? ›Set Response Limit in Google Forms
After the add-on is installed, launch the forms add-on and choose the Limit Form Responses menu. Here you need to specify the criteria when your Google Form should be closed for new responses.
When you create a file on Google Docs, Sheets, & Slides and share it, it is stored securely in our world-class data centers. Data is encrypted in-transit and at-rest. If you choose to access these files offline, we store this info on your device.
Does Jotform work with Google forms? ›Ready to upgrade your forms with Jotform? Use our Import Google Forms tool to transfer your existing Google Forms and submissions data into your new Jotform account.
What is the difference between Jotform and Google Forms? ›Unlike Google Forms, Jotform offers thousands of form templates, hundreds of form fields and widgets, and dozens of app integrations, so you can build a form that looks and works exactly how you want it to.
Does Jotform integrate with Google? ›Instantly populate your spreadsheets with form data
Integrate Jotform with Google Sheets to automatically sync form submissions to your spreadsheets and update your data in real time. New form data will be sent to your spreadsheets instantly so you and your team can view and analyze it right away.
- Open a form in Google Forms.
- At the top, click Responses.
- Turn "Accepting responses" from On to Off.
If your name or email address aren't asterisked questions that require a response, your Google Form responses are anonymous. Test your Google Form before sending it out by posting it via an Incognito Window to ensure respondents can submit anonymously.
How do students see answers on Google Form quiz? ›
If you don't see a Responses tab, make sure you're in editing mode: Just open up the Google Form you assigned and click on the pencil icon on the bottom right of the screen, and then you should see the Responses tab at the top of the page. In the Responses tab, click on the Individual button.
How do I Share a Google Form with non Gmail users? ›- Email the file to the user as an attachment. With your Google document open in Google Drive, click File, and choose 'Email as attachment'. ...
- Allow anyone with a link to edit your document. ...
- Ask the user to create a Google Account.
All free users of the Google Forms add-on can send up to 20 form responses per day.
What is the maximum responses for Google Form? ›To organize your form by topic, you can add up to 75 sections. Maximum 32000 characters per response to all of the questions in a form. So you could have one or many questions provided the maximum length of "response" to all of them is no more than 32k in total.
Does Google Forms have a response limit? ›The 5 million cell limit will be the one to watch out for. So if you have 1 question on your form you can have 5 million responses...
Should I put my Social Security number on a Google Form? ›However, due to FERPA, information security, and personal privacy, you should never ask for grades, passwords, and “personally identifiable information” (PII) like Social Security numbers.
Can Google Forms be shared with public? ›Click Responses, where you can let users submit another response, edit their responses, or see a summary of all responses. You can also choose to collect email addresses, share the form either only inside your organization or publicly with anyone who has the link.
Are Google Forms Hipaa compliant? ›Are Google Forms HIPAA compliant? Standard Google Forms are not HIPAA compliant. However, you can make them HIPAA compliant by signing a business associate agreement with Google along with changing security and privacy settings on the account to safeguard protected health information (PHI) and other sensitive data.
How can teachers detect cheating in Google Forms? ›Plagiarism checkers will show teachers the authenticity of a student's assignments, which can easily help them track cheating. So the answer to the question "Can Google Classroom track Cheating?" is yes and no. It varies with the type of assignments and quizzes.
How do you keep students from cheating in Google Forms quiz? ›- Shuffle Answer Choices to Block Screen Creepers. ...
- Use Section Breaks to Block Assessment Preview. ...
- Use Branches to Create Alternative Assessment Paths. ...
- Ask Better Questions.