What good is a survey when you can’t fill it in? If people report that they can’t access your Google Form, or if you would like to restrict access, we can help you sort it out. You can make a Google Forms survey public without making it editable and can limit access in different ways.
How to Make a Google Form Public and Share It
By default, Google Forms are accessible to anyone with the form link. If your Google account is part of an organization or school (i.e., a Google Workplace account), however, the forms you create are, by default, only available to members of your organization and its trusted organizations. Follow the steps below to change those default settings.
Navigate to Google Forms, open or create your form, then click the “Settings” tab at the top.
Scroll until you find the “Responses” section, and click the arrow to expand its settings. Set the “Collect Email Addresses” drop-down to “Do Not Collect,” then ensure that the “Limit to One Response” option is turned off. Most importantly, make sure to disable the “Restrict to Users in Workplace” toggle.
Note: the “Limit to One Response” option requires users to sign in to their Google Account. Activating it will require activating “Collect Email Addresses.”
Your form is now accessible to anyone, but not editable. If the respondent is logged in to their Google account, their email address won’t be shared with you.
To share your form, click the “Send” button at the top to see the options. Rest assured, this will make the Google Form public but not editable by anyone, as the link being shared is the respondent’s link.
You have several sharing options, including email. But what serves our purpose best is to share the form via a direct link. This will help you spread this link across the groups where you intend to collect answers.
Click the “Link” icon and copy it, and also tick the “Shorten Link” option to have a better-looking link. Make sure to leave the “Do Not Collect” option intact.
To test whether the Google Form is public, open a new browser incognito tab, and navigate to the link you just copied.
You can do the same on mobile. Although Google Forms doesn’t have a native app, you can access all these settings through the browser. It’s worth mentioning that third-party apps are available on Android or iOS, like “Formaker” on Android and “Form for Google Forms ” on iOS.
Tip: master managing forms by learning the Google Forms Keyboard Shortcuts.
Making a Google Form Editable
In some cases, you may need to let other people edit your Google Form, which means they will alter the questions and answers. This option should benefit team members or collaborators but won’t contradict making a Google Form public but not editable for regular users.
Click the three-dot icon at the top to expand the settings, then select “Add Collaborators.”
You have two options here: the first is to invite a collaborator via email, and the second is to share a link to edit this Google Form. Ensure that you don’t mix up the public Google Form link with this one. If you decide to share the editing privileges by email, just enter the collaborator, and they will receive an invitation to edit.
To let team members edit this form via a link, set the privacy settings to “Anyone with the Link” as “Editor.” Then, copy the link and send it to them. However, if you click “Copy Correspondent Link,” you’ll copy the regular link that leads the user to the form. Alternatively, copy the URL from your browser while you’re on the editing page to share the link that lets people edit the form.
When the collaborator opens the link, they will see the same control panel you’re seeing and be able to alter the form.
You can add collaborators through the mobile version as well. Navigate to Google Forms using your browser, open the form, press the three-dot icon, choose “Add Collaborators,” and invite them.
How to Track Changes in a Google Form
Google Forms doesn’t keep detailed records of the edits other collaborators make. When you share the editable version of a Google Form with anyone, and they make modifications, you will only see a notice at the top that someone at a specific time has edited the form. The editor’s name will only appear if you share the form via email invitation.
However, you can install an add-on that gives you more information about the edits.
Click the three-dot icon in the top-right corner, and choose “Get Add-ons.”
Search for the “Forms History” add-on, and install it.
After installing the add-on, click its icon in the top bar, and choose “Open.” A new pop-up will appear, giving you more information about edits and the option to “Make Copy” for a specific version.
How to Make a Google Form Private
There are different ways to make a Google Form private, which users typically look for when they’re done with the form and no longer seeking new submissions. Alternatively, users may just need to improve the form’s privacy by making submissions more informative. Let’s see what we can do.
The easiest way to make a Google Form private is by disabling it. This means the form will be live, and its link will work, but no one can fill it in or see the questions. To do this, navigate to the “Responses” section, and turn off the “Accepting Answers” toggle.
Alternatively, if you’re done with the form, you can delete it. Click the three-dot icon in the top-right corner, and choose “Move to bin.” You can also use the “Link to Sheets” option first to copy the form results into a Google Sheet file.
Make your form more private by restricting access to people signed in to their Google accounts. Go back to “Settings -> Responses,” and enable “Collect Email Addresses.” You can also enable “Limit to One Response” to only allow the user to fill out the form one time.
How to Password-Protect a Google Form
When you password-protect your form, visitors won’t see the form until they provide the password.
Add a question at the beginning of the form, click the drop-down menu next to it, and select “Short Answer.”
Descriptively word the question to inform users to enter their password or access code. Mark the question as “Required,” click the three-dot icon in the bottom-right corner, and choose “Response Validation.”
Set the rules to “Regular Expression” that “Match” the password you’ll set, then set your password. Note that you can add a variable in the “Custom Error Text” field. For instance, if the password is thisisyourpassword, you can add the custom text of this is your password, with spaces.
To prevent the user from seeing the rest of the form until they provide the password, press the “Add Section” option, and move the password question to the top.
Opening the form will require the user to provide the password you shared with them.
Tip: have you tried one of these Google Forms alternatives yet?
Getting the Most Out of Google Forms
It’s effortless to use Google Forms on any platform, and it’s possible to make a Google Form public but not editable in simple steps. Still, you can discover more possible optimizations by digging into the settings to make good use of Google Forms. For instance, you can create a form that helps hire employees or one that can serve as a survey! Moreover, you can make funny and educational quizzes using Google Forms!
Image credit: Flaticon and Unsplash. All screenshots by Mustafa Ashour.
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