How to Add a Confirmation Message in Google Forms

When someone submits your Google Form, they shouldn't be left staring at a blank screen wondering if anything happened. A confirmation message — sometimes called a response receipt or thank-you message — is what appears immediately after a respondent hits Submit. Customizing it is one of the simplest yet most overlooked settings in Google Forms, and getting it right makes a real difference in how professional and trustworthy your form feels.

What Is a Confirmation Message in Google Forms?

By default, Google Forms displays a generic message after submission: "Your response has been recorded." That's functional, but it tells the respondent nothing specific about what happens next, when to expect a reply, or whether they've completed the right form.

A custom confirmation message replaces that default text with whatever you want to communicate — a thank-you note, next steps, a reference number reminder, or instructions for what the respondent should do now. It appears on the same page immediately after submission, before the respondent navigates away.

This is different from an email confirmation, which requires additional setup (and in some cases, a Google Workspace account). The confirmation message we're covering here is purely on-screen.

How to Add or Edit the Confirmation Message 🖊️

The setting lives inside the form editor itself, not in any external settings panel. Here's how to find it:

1. Open your Google Form in edit mode at forms.google.com.
2. Click the Settings tab at the top of the form (between "Questions" and "Responses").
3. Scroll down to the Presentation section and expand it by clicking the arrow.
4. Look for the field labeled "Confirmation message."
5. Click into the text box and type your custom message.
6. Changes save automatically — there's no separate Save button to hit.

That's the complete process. The field accepts plain text only; you can't add hyperlinks, images, or formatted text directly within that box.

What You Can and Can't Include

If you need clickable links or rich formatting in your post-submission experience, that requires a workaround — such as redirecting respondents to a separate webpage, which is available in Google Workspace (paid) accounts via the "Redirect to URL" option.

Other Presentation Settings That Work Alongside It

While you're in the Presentation section, you'll notice a few related settings that affect the post-submission experience:

• "Show link to submit another response" — Displays a link letting respondents fill out the form again. Useful for event sign-ups or order forms where the same person might submit on behalf of multiple people.
• "Allow response editing" — Gives respondents a link to return and modify their submission. This changes the post-submission screen to include that link.
• "Show summary of responses" (available in some account types) — Lets respondents see aggregate response data after submitting.

Each of these options changes what the respondent sees alongside your confirmation message, so it's worth reviewing all of them together rather than in isolation.

Writing a Confirmation Message That Actually Helps

The content of your message matters as much as the fact that it exists. A few things worth thinking through:

Be specific about next steps. "Thank you for applying — our team reviews submissions every Monday and will follow up within 5 business days" is far more useful than "Thanks for your response."

Acknowledge what was submitted. If your form is for an event registration, say so. If it's for a support request, acknowledge that. Generic language creates uncertainty.

Set expectations around follow-up. If someone will be in touch, say when and how. If no follow-up is coming, make that clear too — it reduces unnecessary inbound messages.

Keep it brief. This isn't a landing page. Respondents are looking for reassurance that their submission went through, not a wall of text.

Where Things Get More Complicated 🔍

The basic confirmation message works identically across all Google accounts — personal Gmail and Google Workspace alike. But the surrounding options differ depending on your account type and how the form is configured.

For example:

• Quizzes (forms set to Quiz mode) have a different post-submission experience that can include score display settings, which interact separately from the standard confirmation message.
• Forms embedded in websites via iframe will still show the confirmation message inside the embed, but the visual experience can vary depending on the iframe dimensions and the website's styling.
• Mobile respondents on the Google Forms app or a mobile browser see the confirmation message just as desktop users do, but the layout compresses differently.

If your form is part of a larger workflow — feeding into a Google Sheet, triggering email notifications, or connected to a third-party tool like Zapier — the on-screen confirmation message is only one piece of what respondents and form owners experience after a submission lands.

Whether the default Google Forms confirmation message is enough for your use case, or whether you need something more robust, depends entirely on what your form is actually doing and who's filling it out.