Opening, closing and limits

Where these settings live

Everything here is on the Settings tab, in the Responses card. Changes save as you make them, and they take effect on the next visit to the form. There is no publish step, so a form can be closed the moment you notice a problem.

The form must have been published at least once before you can open or close it. Before that the switch is disabled and the page says "Not published yet. Publish from the builder to go live."

Accepting responses

Accepting responses is the master switch. When it is off, the form is Closed: visitors see the closed message, and no new responses are taken. The status text under the switch spells out the current state: "Live and accepting responses.", "Closed. Visitors see your closed message." or "Archived. Restore it below to accept responses again."

Opens and Closes

Set Opens to have a form stay unavailable until a certain time, and Closes to end it automatically. Both use your browser's time zone for editing, and the page shows which zone that is. Stored times are in UTC. Clear removes a date. The time you enter is converted to UTC when it is saved, so the form opens or closes at the same instant for everyone, wherever they are.

A form has to open before it closes, otherwise the setting is refused. Before the opening time, visitors see "This form opens on" followed by the date, and after the closing time they see your closed message.

Response limit

Response limit stops the form after a number of submitted responses, from 1 to 1,000,000. The field shows how many responses have arrived and how many are left. Only submitted responses count, not partial ones.

The limit is checked again inside the same database transaction that stores a response, so two people submitting at the same instant cannot both take the last place. Someone who tries after the limit is reached sees "This form is full" with the message that it has reached its response limit. People who already submitted can still use their edit link if the form allows editing.

Leave the field empty for no limit.

Closed message

Closed message is plain text of up to 500 characters shown when the form is closed, full or past its closing time. If you leave it empty, visitors see "This form is no longer accepting responses." Use it to say when to come back or where to go instead.

Who can change them

Anyone who can edit the form can change these settings. Viewers can see them but not change them. Password protection is owner-only; see Respondent access.

Plans

Opening and closing dates, response limits, password protection and sign-in rules are together called access controls, and they are a plan feature. The Accepting responses switch and the closed message are available on every plan. Separately from your own limit, a plan has a cap on responses per month; see When you reach a limit.

Archive and trash

At the bottom of the Settings tab, Danger zone has two more ways to stop a form. Archive stops responses and moves the form out of the way, and Restore brings it back. Move to trash takes the link offline and keeps the form for 30 days; only owners can do it. See Dashboard, templates and trash.