How to add a description to a Google Form question

Last updated September 2026 · ~9 minute read

Short answer: the field exists on every question, it is just hidden. Google's step is exact — “To add a description to a question, click More ⋮ and then Description” (Choose a type of question for your form). The reason people cannot find it is rarely the menu, though. It is that Google uses the one word description for three different fields, and help text written into the wrong one appears in the wrong place — or on the wrong page entirely.

So sort the three out first. It takes half a minute and it is the whole reason this page exists.

Three fields, one word

The clearest proof that these are genuinely different objects, rather than three views of one setting, is the Forms API reference, which names all three separately:

There is a fourth thing people sometimes mean, and it is worth naming so you can rule it out: the standalone title-and-description block you insert into the list of questions. Google's Apps Script reference calls it a SectionHeaderItem — “a layout item that visually indicates the start of a section” — and its second field is help text, “sometimes called description text.” It is an item in the list, like a question is. It is not the form's own description, and it does not create a page.

Sections proper — the page breaks — have their own guide: Google Forms sections and section headers covers adding, moving, merging and deleting them, and why a section is a page rather than a heading. This page stays on the description fields themselves.

Add a description to a question

1. Open the form in the Google Forms editor and click the question you want to describe.
2. Click More — the three-dot menu on the question card.
3. Choose Description. A second text field appears under the question title.
4. Type the instruction. It belongs to that question and moves with it if you reorder the form.

Two things the steps do not say. First, the control is per question: turning it on for one question does not turn it on for the next, which is why a form built over several sittings often has descriptions on some questions and not others. Second, Google publishes no length limit for the field — there is no maxLength on it anywhere in the API reference, and none in the help centre either. The limits that do exist are counted in items, not characters; see Google Forms character limits for what is and is not published.

Google is also silent on what happens when you turn the field back off after typing into it. Nothing in the help pages describes that, so if you want the text gone, clear it yourself rather than assuming hiding the field removes it.

The other two, briefly

The form description is the odd one: the help centre gives you a step for the question description and a step for naming a section, but never a step for this one. You simply click the text under the title. The nearest Google gets is on Edit your form: “To edit a question, header, or description, click the text you want to change.” It is read once, by everybody, before they have answered anything — so it is where deadlines, eligibility and “what you will need to hand” belong.

A section description sits at the top of that section's page. Google's developer documentation is explicit that both of a section's fields are shown there, which makes the description the first thing a respondent reads on the page rather than a footnote. It is the right home for context that applies to a group of questions but not to the whole form.

Formatting inside a description

This one surprises people who last looked a few years ago: Google does document rich text in descriptions, on its Format text in your form page. The scope sentence is worth memorising, because it draws the line for you: “You can only format the text in titles, questions, and descriptions. You can't format answer options.”

The documented options are bold, italic and underline; links, which you can add, edit or remove; numbered and bulleted lists; and a remove-formatting command. Google announced the feature in June 2022 as “bolding, underlining, italicizing, hyperlinks, and lists in titles, question titles, and descriptions.”

Lists are the part worth having. A description containing three bulleted conditions reads as three conditions; the same text as one run-on sentence reads as noise and gets skipped. What Google does not document anywhere is plain line breaks — whether a newline you type survives into the published form is simply not stated, so if the shape of the text matters, use a list, which is documented.

Descriptions count toward the 300

They are not free annotations on a question. Google's limit sentence names them outright: “After you've created a form, you can add and edit up to 300 pieces of content, like questions, descriptions, images, and videos” (Edit your form). A description is a piece of content in its own right, and so is each image and each video.

For most forms this is trivia. For a long assessment or an intake form that has grown for two years, it is the difference between having room and not: a 150-question form where every question carries a description is already at the ceiling, with nothing left for images.

What a screen reader does with a description

Google does not say, and it is better to know that than to guess. Its Use Google Forms with a screen reader page describes the structure a published form exposes — “each title, question, and section displays as a heading” — but it never states whether a question's description is announced together with the question, or read as separate text the user may pass over. The help centre is silent on it.

The safe working rule follows from the silence: anything that changes the answer belongs in the question title. “Date of birth” with “DD/MM/YYYY” only in the description is a gamble; “Date of birth (DD/MM/YYYY)” is not. Keep the description for the elaboration that helps but is not load-bearing. Our Google Forms accessibility guide collects the rest, including the image alt-text gap Google admits in its own conformance report — a gap whose only workaround is, as it happens, the question description.

Where a description does not follow the answer

Three questions come up constantly, and the honest answer to all three is the same: Google publishes nothing about it.

• The linked spreadsheet. No Google documentation states that a question description appears in the response sheet in any form. See responses in Google Sheets.
• An emailed receipt. Google documents that a respondent can be sent a copy of their response, but not what a description does inside that email — response receipts.
• A printed copy. Nothing in the help centre describes how descriptions are laid out when a form is printed — print a Google Form.

If any of those three matter to you, test it once on your own form rather than trusting a blog post, this one included. Undocumented behaviour is behaviour Google can change without telling anybody.

On iPhone and iPad

Forms+ keeps the same shape as the web editor, so the habit transfers. Tap the overflow menu on a question and you get Description, plus the options that apply to that question type: Response validation on Short answer, Paragraph and Checkboxes; Shuffle option order on the choice types — Multiple choice, Checkboxes and Dropdown; and Go to section based on answer on Multiple choice and Dropdown. Description is a toggle with a checkmark, so you can see at a glance which questions already have the field showing.

Two details the app adds. On an image item the same entry is labelled Hover text, and on a video item it is labelled Caption — because that is what the field does there, and calling all three “description” is exactly the confusion this page is about. And the formatting toolbar that appears while you are editing offers Bold, Italic, Underline, Insert link, Numbered list and Bulleted list on the description field as well as the title — the same set Google documents for the web.

What belongs in each field

The failure mode is always the same direction: instructions written at the top of the form for a problem that appears on question 14. Nobody scrolls back. If the sentence only matters at one question, put it on that question.

Frequently asked questions

How do I add a description to a question in Google Forms?

Google's step is: “To add a description to a question, click More and then Description.” The field is hidden on every new question until you turn it on from that three-dot menu, and it applies to the one question you have selected.

Why is there no Description field on my question?

Because it is off by default. Google does not show the description field on a new question; it appears only after you click More and then Description on that question. If you are looking at the top of the form instead, the text under the form title is the form description, which is a different field.

Can I use bold text or a link in a Google Forms description?

Yes, and Google documents it. Its Format text in your form page states that “you can only format the text in titles, questions, and descriptions” and that “you can't format answer options.” The documented options are bold, italic, underline, links, and numbered and bulleted lists.

Do descriptions count toward the 300-item limit?

Yes. Google states that “after you've created a form, you can add and edit up to 300 pieces of content, like questions, descriptions, images, and videos.” Descriptions are named in that list, so a description is a piece of content in its own right.

Does a screen reader read out a question description?

Google does not publish an answer. Its Use Google Forms with a screen reader page says that each title, question and section displays as a heading when a form is published, but it never states whether a description is announced together with its question. Treat it as undocumented and put anything that changes the answer into the question title.