How to get email notifications for Google Forms (including multiple recipients)

Turn on email notifications in Google Forms

1. Open the form you want to follow and select the Responses tab.
2. Click More, the three-dot icon in the Responses tab.
3. Select Get email notifications for new responses.
4. Send a test response to check that the email arrives. You can delete the test afterwards from the Individual view of the Responses tab.

The option is set form by form, so repeat it in each form you want to follow. To stop the emails, select the same option again. Google describes these settings in its help on viewing and managing form responses.

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

For one person following one form, that's often all you need. The questions start when several people need to know, or when the email should say more.

Send notifications to multiple email addresses

Google Forms has no recipient list for notifications. These are the usual ways around it, from free and built in to paid.

1. Each collaborator turns notifications on

Add your colleagues as collaborators on the form (see Google's help on sharing a form with collaborators), then ask each of them to follow the steps above in their own account. It's free and built in. The trade-offs: collaborators can also edit the form, and each person manages their own setting, so nobody can see who is actually notified.

2. Forward the emails with a Gmail filter

If one person receives the notifications, a Gmail filter can pass them on to a colleague, a shared mailbox or a group address. Create a filter that matches the notification emails, for example by your form's name, and choose Forward it to. Gmail asks you to add and confirm the forwarding address first. In Google Workspace, your administrator may have turned automatic forwarding off.

3. Send the emails with Apps Script

A short Google Apps Script attached to the response spreadsheet can email any list of addresses on each submission, add the answers, and choose recipients based on an answer. Our routing guide has a script you can adapt. Running it is free, within daily email quotas: at the time of writing, 100 recipients a day for a personal Google account and 1,500 for a Google Workspace account, and every address on every email counts. Someone also has to keep the script working.

4. Install a notification add-on

Notification add-ons from the Google Workspace Marketplace fill the gaps of the built-in option: several recipients, the answers in the email, different emails depending on the answers. Features, limits and prices vary, so compare them on what you need, and check the permissions each one asks for before you install it.

5. Use a response follow-up tool

Follow-up tools also notify several people, but their real job starts after the email: they give each response an owner and keep track of it until it's handled. More on that below.

Get a daily digest instead of one email per response

If your form receives many responses, one summary a day can be easier to live with. Link the form to a spreadsheet (Responses › Link to Sheets), then in Google Sheets:

1. Open Tools › Notification settings › Edit notifications.
2. Under Notify you when, choose A user submits a form.
3. Under Notify you with, choose Email - daily digest, or Email - right away for one email per submission.

Like the Forms option, this rule only notifies the person who creates it: Google Sheets lets you set up notifications for yourself only.

Include the answers in the email

The built-in email tells you that a response arrived, not what it says. To read the answers in the email itself, you need a script or a tool that offers it. Before you switch it on, think about where those emails end up: answers copied into inboxes are kept, forwarded and searched like any other email. For forms that collect personal, health or financial details, a short alert with a link to the response is often the safer choice.

Send different notifications depending on an answer

Conditional email notifications, such as billing questions to one person and repair requests to another, aren't built into Google Forms. Section branching changes which questions a respondent sees next, but not who gets notified. You need a script, an add-on or a follow-up tool that reads the answer. The guide to sending responses to different people based on their answers covers the routing rules, the fallback and each method in detail.

Notifications in Google Chat or Slack

Google Forms only notifies by email. On eligible Google Workspace editions, Google Workspace Studio can start a flow when someone submits a form, for example to post a message in Google Chat. For Slack and other apps, automation platforms such as Zapier or Make can send a message for each new response. The automation guide compares these options.

Compare the options

If notifications don't arrive

• Check which account turned them on. The option belongs to one Google account: if a colleague switched it on, only they are notified.
• Look in spam and in your Gmail filters. A filter or an inbox tab can move the emails out of sight.
• Test the right form. A copy of a form has its own responses, so send the test to the form you set up.
• Respondent copies are a separate setting. They need email collection to be on, and Google notes that spam filters can block them.

When an alert isn't enough

A notification tells people that something arrived. It doesn't say who will deal with it, or check that someone did. If your responses need a reply, read how to make sure every Google Form response gets handled.

Notifications in Form Watchdog

Form Watchdog connects to the form you already use, without changing it, and treats each notification as the first step of the follow-up:

• Choose who is notified for each form from your verified notification addresses (up to five), and whether emails contain a short alert or the full response.
• Get emails at the moments that matter: when a response arrives, when it's assigned or changes hands, when it's handled, and when it misses its deadline.
• Give each response an owner, for the whole form or based on an answer. The owner receives their own email with the response deadline.
• Mark a response handled from the email if you're the person who can handle it.
• Keep reminding until the response is handled, then alert the people you choose when it's overdue.
• Send updates to Slack or to your own tools with signed webhooks.

It doesn't email the people who fill out your form, so respondent copies stay a Google Forms setting.