Form settings
Open a form and choose Settings. Every setting here takes effect immediately, no republish needed.
Form language
Section titled “Form language”The language of the words Nextforms adds to your form: the buttons (Next, Submit, Review), validation messages, the file picker, the password screen and the like. Your own questions, descriptions and messages stay exactly as you wrote them.
By default this is Match the respondent’s browser: a visitor whose browser is set to German sees German, someone in the Netherlands sees Dutch, and a language we don’t offer falls back to English. Pick a language to show every visitor the same one, which suits a form written in that language.
Available: English, Español, Português, Français, Deutsch, Italiano, Polski, Nederlands, Svenska, Dansk, Norsk and Suomi.
Accepting responses
Section titled “Accepting responses”The master switch. Off, the form shows your closed message instead of the questions. Everything already collected stays.
Schedule
Section titled “Schedule”Open the form from a date, until a date, or both. Outside the window, visitors see the closed message. Times are in your timezone.
Response limit
Section titled “Response limit”Stop accepting after a number of responses. Useful for a workshop with 20 seats or a giveaway. The count is real responses only, test runs don’t count.
Closed message
Section titled “Closed message”What visitors read when the form is closed for any of the reasons above. Leave it empty for a plain “This form is closed.”
Password
Section titled “Password”Ask for a password before the form opens. Set one under Password in the settings, at least four characters. Respondents see a password screen in the form’s own look, and the password is remembered for their tab, so a refresh doesn’t ask again.
The password is checked when the form is submitted too, not only at the screen, so it can’t be skipped. It’s stored hashed; the settings only show whether one is set. Use it for internal and invite-only forms. Anyone with the link and the password gets in, so it is a door, not identity.
Spam protection
Section titled “Spam protection”An invisible check by Cloudflare Turnstile. Most people see nothing, there are no puzzles. It’s on by default and can be turned off if it interferes with your respondents. It stays on, and can’t be turned off, when a workflow emails respondents through the built-in sender, an Email question asks respondents to verify their address, or an Address question suggests addresses: those are what bots look for. The switch says which one applies.
Limit to one response
Section titled “Limit to one response”Each person can submit once. Pick how a person is recognised: by their device, by their network address, or by what they answered in a field such as their email. None of these is bulletproof, so treat it as duplicate prevention rather than proof of identity. Deleting a response lets that person submit again.
Save unfinished responses
Section titled “Save unfinished responses”Pro. Answers are saved as people fill in the form, before they submit, so you can see who started and where they stopped under Responses, In progress (see Responses), and which questions people stop at on the Overview (Where people stop). Off by default. Signatures and payments are never saved this way. An unfinished response is deleted 30 days after its last answer, with any files uploaded to it; one that gets submitted becomes a normal response. When spam protection is on, the same invisible check runs before the first answers are saved.
A workflow can start when someone leaves the form unfinished, to remind them with a link that brings their answers back: see Recover unfinished responses.
Respondents aren’t shown a notice. If your respondents are in the EU, mention in the form or in your privacy policy that answers are saved as they are typed.
To limit abuse, each unfinished response keeps a hash of the respondent’s IP address, never the address itself. A hash is a pseudonym, not anonymous data: it is deleted with the unfinished response.
Let respondents pick up where they left off
Section titled “Let respondents pick up where they left off”In-progress answers are kept in the respondent’s browser, so a closed tab doesn’t lose a half-filled form. They also survive a new version of the form (see Edit a live form safely). Turn it off for shared devices, or when answers are sensitive.
Delete old responses
Section titled “Delete old responses”Under Data, choose how long to keep responses: 30 days, 90 days, 6 months, 1 year or 2 years. Older responses are then deleted permanently, with their uploaded files and workflow history. The check runs every hour, so a response goes shortly after it reaches the age you picked. It is free on every plan.
Because this can’t be undone, a setting that deletes more (turning it on, or picking a shorter period) never starts straight away:
- Before you save, the settings page shows how many responses it would delete.
- Deletion starts 24 hours later. Until then, change it or turn it off and nothing is deleted.
- Everyone on your team who can edit forms (owners, admins and editors) gets an email saying what was set and when deletion starts.
A response a workflow is still working on, or one waiting for an approval, is kept until that finishes. A response that was edited counts from its latest version, so an old response someone updated last week is kept as a response from last week.
Choosing a longer period, or Keep forever, applies at once.