The Google Forms Submit button: what you can and cannot change

Last updated September 2026 · ~9 minute read

Short answer: you cannot rename it. There is no setting in Google Forms that changes the Submit button's label, no field for it in the Google Forms REST API, and no method for it in Apps Script. What you can control is when a respondent reaches it, and what happens after they press it.

Every response you will ever collect passes through one control, and it is the one piece of the form Google hands you almost no power over. That is worth knowing before you spend an afternoon searching the settings panel for a button you cannot find.

Can the Submit button's label be changed?

This deserves more than an assertion, because half the internet answers it with a workaround and never says whether the plain answer is yes or no. Three places would have to be silent for the answer to be no, and all three are.

• The help centre. Google's page on publishing and sharing a form walks through every setting a form owner touches before sending it out — response limits, response editing, results summaries, the confirmation message. None of them is about the button.
• The REST API. The Form resource has exactly eight fields: formId, info, items, settings, revisionId, responderUri, linkedSheetId and publishSettings. Info holds a title, a document title and a description. FormSettings holds only quizSettings and emailCollectionType. Nothing in the resource describes button text.
• Apps Script. The Form class can set a great deal — setConfirmationMessage(), setCustomClosedFormMessage(), setProgressBar(), setShuffleQuestions(), setLimitOneResponsePerUser(), setPublished(). There is no setSubmitButtonText(), and no equivalent under another name.

So the absence is the answer, and it is a consistent absence rather than a gap in one document. Two honest caveats. First, an undocumented absence is not a promise: Google can add a setting without warning anybody, so if this matters to you, check the current API reference rather than this page. Second, third-party tools that re-render your form on their own page can show whatever button they like — but at that point your respondents are no longer looking at a Google Form, which changes more than the wording on one button.

The same goes for the button's colour, size and position. Changing the theme colour of a form is documented; changing the button specifically is not mentioned anywhere, and a theme is not a button setting.

Where the button actually appears

On a single-page form, Submit sits at the bottom, after the last question. On a form split into sections it is not that simple, and this is the most common source of “my form has no Submit button” reports.

Google documents the routing, not the rendering. Its page on showing questions based on answers says: “At the bottom right, click More → Go to section based on answer. If you want the survey to end based on an answer, you can also choose Submit form,” and “At the bottom of each section, you can choose which section people go to next.” Google's respondent troubleshooting page separately refers to “the ‘Next’ button to move to the next question or section.”

Put those together and the behaviour is clear enough — a section that routes onward shows Next, a section that ends the form shows Submit — but note that Google never states it in those words on any help page we can find. The API is blunter than the help centre here: an answer option carries a goToAction whose values are NEXT_SECTION, RESTART_FORM and SUBMIT_FORM, the last described as “Submit form immediately.”

The practical consequence: if a form with several sections shows Next where you expected Submit, the section's own routing is sending respondents somewhere, and that routing is what you edit — not the button. See conditional logic in Google Forms for how the branches fit together.

Why a respondent cannot find or press Submit

Google publishes a short troubleshooting article for respondents, Fix common errors while you respond to a Google Form, and it is the closest thing to an official answer here. Four causes, three of them documented.

1. An unanswered required question

Google's wording: “If you've completed all the questions on a form but you can't submit it, there may be several underlying issues. To troubleshoot, ensure you've answered all required questions. Check for any fields highlighted in red with the message ‘This is a required question,’ which indicate that they're mandatory.” The same page adds that a blocked Next button means “some required fields are incomplete or some answer validation error is not resolved.”

This is the number one cause, and it is worse on a phone, where the red error can sit off-screen above the fold while the respondent stares at a button that appears to do nothing. The API states the rule plainly: a question's required field is “Whether the question must be answered in order for a respondent to submit their response.” More in required questions in Google Forms.

2. The form is closed

Google lists the exact error text: “Form is no longer accepting responses. This means that the form is currently closed for submissions.” There is no button on that page because there is no form on that page — the respondent never reaches the questions. See how to stop accepting responses for the switch that causes it, deliberately or otherwise.

3. The form was never published

Easier to trip over than it sounds. Google: “Before responders can access your form, you need to publish it… When you publish a form, responders can access it. If the form is unpublished, responders with the link can't access it.” The API mirrors it exactly — a form's publishState carries isPublished and isAcceptingResponses, and “if is_published is set to false, this field is forced to false.” An unpublished form is not a form with a broken Submit button; it is a form nobody can open.

4. The frame is too short

This one is not Google's to document, and it is entirely self-inflicted. An embedded form is displayed inside an iframe with a fixed height — Google's dialog writes that height into the snippet as a plain pixel number. If that height is smaller than the form, everything past it is cut off, including the Submit button at the bottom, and the respondent reports that your form “has no Submit button.” Sizing the embed fixes it.

What happens after the press

Two things appear, and neither is the button's doing. The first is your confirmation message, which replaces the form; it is the one part of this whole sequence you have real control over, and it is covered in full in the Google Forms confirmation message.

The second is a Submit another response link. The help centre never mentions it — but Google's developer documentation does, and quite precisely. The Apps Script Form class has setShowLinkToRespondAgain(enabled), “Sets whether the form displays a link to submit another response after a respondent completes the form,” whose parameter is “true if the form should display a ‘Submit another response’ link; false if not,” with hasRespondAgainLink() to read it back. So it is a real, documented, scriptable setting — just not one Google explains to the people who edit forms rather than script them.

One press, two responses

A respondent who does not see an immediate confirmation often presses Submit again, and on a slow connection that can be recorded twice. That is a whole subject of its own, including which settings reduce it and which only appear to — see duplicate responses in Google Forms.

Keyboards and screen readers

Here Google is close to silent, and it is worth saying so rather than inventing reassurance. Use Google Forms with a screen reader is written almost entirely for the person building the form: recommended browser and screen reader pairings, how to turn off browse mode, the order of the controls above the editor, and editor shortcuts such as Ctrl + Enter to publish and Ctrl + Shift + P to preview.

It makes exactly one statement about the published form: “When a Form is published, to make navigation easy, each title, question, and section displays as a heading.” Titles, questions and sections. The submit control is not named on that page at all, and no other Google help page we have found describes how it is labelled to assistive technology, whether it is reachable by Tab, or what a screen reader announces when a submission is blocked by a required question.

The honest instruction is therefore: test it yourself, on your own form, with the keyboard alone and then with a screen reader, before you rely on a form that must be accessible. Our Google Forms accessibility guide covers what Google does and does not commit to in more detail.

What you can control, and where

Doing this from an iPhone

Forms+ is a native editor for your real Google Forms, on your own Google account. It cannot rename the Submit button either — nobody can — but the settings around it are all there. Marking a question Required sits in the question editor, and form settings carry Show link to submit another response, written back through the same setShowLinkToRespondAgain call Google documents. That switch is greyed out while Limit to 1 response is on, because inviting somebody to respond again while allowing one response each is a contradiction.

Frequently asked questions

Can you change the Submit button text in Google Forms?

Not in Google Forms itself. Google's help pages describe no setting for it, the Google Forms REST API v1 has no field for button text anywhere on the Form, Info or FormSettings resources, and the Apps Script Form class has no method for it either — it can set the confirmation message and the closed-form message, but not the button label.

Why does my Google Form show Next instead of Submit?

Because the respondent is not on the last section of the form. Google documents the Next button on its respondent troubleshooting page and documents a Submit form option you can attach to a multiple choice or dropdown answer to end the survey early, but it does not publish a statement of which button each section renders. If you want a section to finish the form, set that routing explicitly and test it.

Why can't someone submit my Google Form?

Google's own list of causes starts with unanswered required questions: check for fields highlighted in red with the message “This is a required question.” The other documented ones are a closed form, which shows “Form is no longer accepting responses,” and an unpublished form, which responders with the link cannot access at all.

Where does the Submit another response link come from?

It is a form setting, not part of your confirmation message. The Google Forms help centre does not mention it, but Google's Apps Script reference does: setShowLinkToRespondAgain(enabled) takes “true if the form should display a ‘Submit another response’ link,” and hasRespondAgainLink() reads it back.