How to Make Google Form Anonymous

Ivana Ivana

Written by Ivana - Reviewed by Tanja Google Workplace / Forms

5 min read
Key Points

To create an anonymous Google Form:

  1. Open a Google Form.
  2. Click on the 'Settings' tab.
  3. Go to the ‘Responses’ tab.
  4. Make sure 'Collect email addresses’ and ‘Limit to 1 response’ are toggled off.

Google Forms is a great online survey tool that helps you gather data and save it in a spreadsheet. You can easily create surveys, application forms, pop quizzes and checkout pages. However, if you are creating a survey, but don’t want to reveal the identity of your respondents, the good news is that you can make Google Forms anonymous.

Check out the post below to learn how to make a Google Form anonymous.

How to make Google Forms anonymous

If you are creating a Google Form and want to make it anonymous, you can do it in just a few steps.

If you are answering a Google Form, you can easily tell if it’s anonymous. If you see fields marked with an asterisk, such as the name or email address field, this means that these fields are required to submit the form, and your answers will not be anonymous.

However, if you don’t see any fields marked with an asterisk, you can be sure that your answers will be anonymous.

Also, if you fill in an anonymous Google Form, you don’t need a Google account. However, if you are creating an anonymous Google Form, you do need a Google Account. Here’s how to do it.

  1. Open Google Forms.
  2. Click on the ‘+ Blank’ to start from scratch or select a pre-made.

Click on the ‘+ Blank’ to open a blank form

  1. Alternatively, go to your Google Drive, right-click and select Google Forms > choose Blank Form or From a Template.

Right-click > Google Forms > Blank form

  1. After you’ve created your survey form, click on the ‘Settings’ tab at the top-right corner of the screen.
  2. Go to the ‘Responses’ tab and click on the down-pointing arrow next to the tab.

Go to the 'Settings' tab then the 'Responses' tab

  1. Make sure the toggles for ‘Collect email addresses’ and ‘Limit to 1 response’ are turned off.

Make sure the toggles for ‘Collect email addresses’ and ‘Limit to 1 response’ are turned off.

Note: When you uncheck the box for ‘Limit to 1 response’, everyone can fill out the Google Form, even people without a Google account. On the other hand, if you leave the box checked, respondents will need to sign in to their Google Accounts to be able to fill out the form. Nevertheless, they will remain anonymous as long as the ‘Collect email addresses’ box is unchecked.

How to test if your Google Form is anonymous

It’s a good practice to test if your Google Form is truly anonymous and that it doesn’t collect data from respondents.

  1. Open Google Forms.
  2. Open the Form you want to test.
  3. Click on the ‘Send’ button at the top-right corner of the screen.

Click on the 'Send' button

  1. Click on the link tab, then click on ‘Copy’ to copy it.

Copy the link of the form

  1. Then, open an Incognito Window on Google Chrome or another browser and make sure you are not signed into your Google account.
  2. Paste the Google Form link you copied in the search tab.
  3. Fill out the form as a respondent would.
  4. Now, go back to Google Forms in the window where you created it and select the Responses tab.

Check if the responses in the form are anonymous

  1. Check if the information collected from your Google Form is anonymous, i.e., doesn’t contain names and email addresses.

If you want to learn about other Google Marketplace tools, check out how to rename a Google Drive folder.