How to View Responses in Google Forms

Learn how to access Google Forms responses in four ways: Summary, Question, and Individual tabs, and exporting to Google Sheets. For enhanced forms and response analysis, we’ll also cover how to use Paperform - the best alternative to Google Forms.

14-day free trial included. No credit card needed.

You’ve sent out your form, pestered your colleagues to fill it out, and finally gathered all the responses. Now all you’ve got to do is review them.

But… where are they?

If you’ve found yourself searching for responses after you’ve sent out your Google Form, you’re not alone.

In this post, we’ll walk you through the different ways to get answers in Google Forms, and offer an easier alternative.

TL;DR

  • This post shows you how to access responses to forms you’ve made. We can’t help find the correct answer to quiz questions, or view Google Forms responses without permission. That's impossible to do, and any post pretending to help you do that isn't being honest.
  • There are four ways to view responses: from the Summary tab, which shows a summary of your responses, the Question tab, which shows all responses to a given question, the Individual tab, which shows each individual answer to the form, and by exporting questions to Google Sheets.
  • If you're frustrated with Google Forms' response analysis, a form builder like Paperform is a much better alternative. You can view form responses from the dashboard, and unlike Google Forms, you can see partial submissions too.
  • Get started with Paperform's 14-day free trial, no credit card required.

Want to view submissions and partial submissions?

Start your 14-day free Paperform trial now. No credit card needed.

How to get answers in Google Forms

You can review form submissions in two main ways: via the Responses tab, and through Google Sheets.

The easiest way to review your form responses is by jumping into the editor. To access it, open up Google Forms and select the form in question.

(If you’re trying to view Google Forms responses on your phone, download the Forms app and follow the same steps.)

Once you’ve opened your form, navigate to the Responses section. There are three ways to view answers:

1. The "Summary" tab

The summary tab allows you to see (you guessed it!) the summary of all of your Google Forms responses.

(Source: Google Forms)

Responses are often displayed visually, in graphs or pie charts, to make analysis easier.

2. The "Question" tab

The questions section will show you all the responses to a given question.

(Source: Google Forms)

This might be helpful if you’ve sent out a scheduling form and you’re looking for overlapping availabilities, or if you’re interested in reviewing responses from a particular section.

3. The "Individual" tab

This view shows each individual answer your form. It’s a great way to zoom in on quizzes or intake forms, to view each response.

Regardless of how you choose to view your responses, you’ll need a way to identify whose answers are whose.

(Source: Google Forms)

You can do this by adding a name field to your form, or by automatically collecting an email address from each form respondent.

To turn on the latter, head to the Settings tab, click the dropdown menu under Responses, and toggle Collect email addresses on.

How to view answers in Google Sheets

The other way to get answers in Google Forms is to view them in a spreadsheet.

Navigate to the Responses tab and click the Google Sheets icon in the top right corner. This will open a spreadsheet of all of your collected answers.

Viewing your responses as a spreadsheet ensures you can access all of your answers from one place. It also opens up what you can do with your data.

The cool part is, Google Forms will automatically update the sheet with new answers. Just bookmark the page, and check back in to access any new responses.

🤯 New to Google Forms? Check out our ultimate guide to Google Forms to become a pro in no time.

Better review and analyse answers with Paperform

If you’re frustrated with Google Forms' answer management, it might be time to upgrade. Paperform is the perfect alternative.

It’s got the balance of beauty and brains you need to create beautiful, personalised forms that automate more of your workflow.

You can view form responses easily from the dashboard. Unlike Google Forms, you can view submissions and partial submissions.

You can also view responses as helpful visualisations, or export the response sheet as a PDF, or CSV file for further examination.

You also get access to our robust, built-in analytics. Just click on analytics from your submission dashboard to help you understand your data at a glance.

You can see how many views and viewers your form has received, what the rate of completion is, and even how many times the form has been started. Through easy to understand graphs, you get a picture-perfect understanding of exactly how people are interacting with your form.

And with Paperform, you won’t be stuck with that classic purple and white Google Forms look. All of your creations are 100% customisable, so you can add images, logos, page breaks, or videos anywhere you choose, all with a few clicks.

Customisation doesn’t stop with your form, either. Your success pages can be as unique as you. With our easy to understand conditional logic and answer piping, you can thank respondents by name, or redirect them to certain pages based on their answers.

Take the below history quiz, for example. Users who score over 80% are given a congratulatory message, while those who score less are navigated to further study materials.

Paperform has a ton of built in automation features, including customisable emails and supported webhooks. But if you want to take your form to the next level, you could always make use of our direct and Zapier integrations.

With a few well curated integrations in place, you never need to worry about tracking down responses again. Connect with a CRM like Hubspot to have data automatically updated to customer profiles, or with Slack to have your channels notified with each submission.

Thinking about making the move from Google Forms? You can easily migrate your forms over to Paperform with our Google Forms import tool.

And when you opt for Paperform, you get a whole lot more than beautiful, easy to manage forms.

  • Automated emails: Send thank you emails to every respondent. Use answer piping to thank them by name, or reference a particular answer they gave.
  • Conditional logic: Create a streamlined, personalised form experience by displaying only relevant fields to each respondent. Logic is powerful and easy to understand, so everyone can make use of it.
  • Accept payments: Process payments with PayPal, Stripe, Square, Braintree and more, all with zero processing fees.
  • Powerful design tools: Gather the right data every time with our 25+ field types, including Ranking, File Upload, and more.
  • Embed anywhere: Host your form as a stand-alone page, share it on social media, or embed it in a website or as a pop-up.
  • Collect signatures: Our dedicated electronic signature field makes collecting signatures in any form a breeze.

Give it a go yourself with our 14-day free trial, and kiss chasing down submissions goodbye.

Get started with Paperform’s 14-day free trial, and leave Google Forms’ limitations behind

Get started