Get an Email Alert Every Time Someone Fills In Your Form
If you rely on a form for enquiries or bookings, the worst thing that can happen is one sitting unseen for three days. This quick win fixes that: every time someone submits your form, you get an email straight away. No more checking the form "just in case."
Time to set up: about 15 minutes. Cost: free. Last checked: September 2026.
If you rely on a form for enquiries or bookings, the worst thing that can happen is one sitting unseen for three days. This quick win fixes that: every time someone submits your form, you get an email straight away. No more checking the form "just in case."
We'll use Make on its free plan, a Google Sheet, and your email. You don't need to know any code.
Before you start
You'll need three things ready:
- A form that already saves submissions to a Google Sheet. (Most form tools, including Jotform and Google Forms, can do this — if yours doesn't yet, set that up first.)
- A free Make account (make.com — you're given a free plan automatically when you sign up).
- The email address you want the alerts to go to.
Step by step
1. Create a new scenario. Log in to Make. In the top-right corner of your dashboard, click Create a scenario. A scenario is just Make's word for one automation.
2. Add the trigger — watch the sheet. The trigger is the step that starts the automation off. Click the big plus to add your first module (a module is one step). Search for and choose Google Sheets, then pick Watch Rows. This is the step that notices when a new form submission lands in your sheet.
3. Connect your Google account. The module will ask you to create a connection. Click Create a connection, sign in with the Google account that owns the sheet, and allow the access it asks for. This is a one-time step so Make can read your sheet.
4. Point it at your sheet. Choose the spreadsheet and the specific sheet (tab) your form fills in. Set Table contains headers to Yes if your top row has column names (most do). Save the module.
5. Add the email step. Click the plus to add a second module. Search for Email and choose Send an Email (or choose Gmail and Send an Email if you use Gmail — either works). Connect your email account the same way you connected Google.
6. Write the alert. In the email step, put your own address in the To field. Give it a clear subject like "New form submission". In the body, you can drop in details from the form: click into the message box and a list of fields from your sheet appears (name, email, message, and so on) — click the ones you want and they'll be inserted automatically. This is called mapping, and it's how the email fills itself in with each submission's details.
7. Test it. Submit a test entry through your own form. Back in Make, click Run once (bottom-left). If it worked, you'll get an email within a minute or two. Check it looks right.
8. Switch it on. Once the test works, turn the scenario on using the switch at the bottom-left. Make will now check for new submissions on a schedule and email you each time.
That's it. From now on, every enquiry pings your inbox.
The reality check
On the free plan, it checks on a schedule, not instantly. By default Make looks at your sheet every 15 minutes, not the very second someone submits. For enquiries that's almost always fine. If you genuinely need instant alerts, that's possible but more fiddly (it needs an add-on installed on the sheet), and not worth it for most people. Don't pay for speed you don't need.
Test with a real submission, not by typing in the sheet. Add your test entry by actually filling in the form, the way a customer would — not by typing a row into the sheet directly. That checks the whole chain works, not just half of it.
Keep an eye on it the first week. Any automation can quietly stop. For the first few days, glance at your form's own submission count against the emails you've had, so you'd notice if one went missing. After a week of it working, you can relax.
Watch your usage if the form gets busy. The free plan has a monthly limit. A normal trickle of enquiries won't trouble it, but if your form suddenly gets shared widely, keep half an eye on your Make usage so you're not caught out.
Official pages to check
This guide is independent and drafted with AI, then reviewed and fact-checked against hands-on experience with these tools before publishing (see How we make our guides). Tool interfaces change from time to time — if a button has moved, the overall steps still apply. The tools named are common examples, not the only options.