Email Notifications

Send submission notifications, responder confirmations, and abandoned-form recovery emails from Rowform.

Setting Up Submission Notifications

1. Open your form in the Builder.
2. Go to the Settings tab.
3. Scroll to the Email Notifications section.
4. Toggle notifications on.

Submission Notification Options

Recipient Email

Enter the email address(es) where notifications should be sent. You can add multiple recipients separated by commas.

Reply-To

If your form includes an Email question, you can select it as the “Reply-to” address. When you receive a notification, hitting Reply in your email client will address the response directly to the person who filled out your form.

Custom Subject Line

Set a custom subject line for notification emails. If left blank, the default subject includes the form title.

Custom Email Body

Write a custom email body template to control exactly what information appears in notification emails. Use the rich text toolbar to format your content and click @ to insert dynamic variables like @form_title or @responses. After editing, click Save to apply your changes.

What’s Included in Notifications

Each notification email contains:

• The form title.
• A summary of the respondent’s answers.
• Hidden field values (if configured) — listed after question answers.
• A timestamp of when the submission was received.
• A link to view the full response in Rowform.

Global Notifications Toggle

In addition to per-form settings, you can enable or disable submission notifications account-wide:

1. Go to Organization Settings > Settings.
2. Toggle Submission email notifications on or off.

When enabled, you’ll receive an email for every new submission across all your forms. Admins can override this for individual forms using the per-form notification settings described above.

Bot Protection

Submission notification emails only trigger for verified submissions. Spam and bot submissions are blocked by Cloudflare Turnstile before a submission notification is sent, keeping your inbox free of junk.

Abandoned Form Recovery Emails (Pro)

Abandoned form recovery sends one email to a respondent who started a published form but did not finish it. The email contains a secure link that restores the respondent’s saved answers and returns them to the form.

Requirements

Recovery email automation runs only when all of the following are true:

• The form belongs to a Pro or Lifetime Deal workspace and is published.
• Abandoned Form Emails is enabled for the form.
• The selected recipient question is an Email question. Email fields inside a Contact Info block are not currently supported.
• The partial response contains a valid address in that Email question and at least one meaningful answer.
• The partial response has not been completed.

The email answer itself counts as a meaningful answer. The workspace owner’s plan controls access for the entire workspace; a team member’s separate personal subscription does not enable recovery emails in a free workspace.

Set Up Recovery Emails

1. Add an Email question to the form if it does not already have one.
2. Open the form in the Builder and go to Settings > Email.
3. Select the Abandoned Forms tab.
4. Choose the Recipient Email Question.
5. Configure the sender, reply-to address, subject, and body.
6. Toggle Abandoned Form Emails on.
7. Click Save, then make sure the form is published.

Removing the recipient question automatically turns the automation off. If the form has no Email question, add one before enabling the feature.

Timing and Cancellation

The one-hour delay is measured from the partial response’s most recent saved activity:

• New activity resets the timer to one full hour from the latest save.
• Closing, refreshing, or backgrounding the form only triggers a final save attempt; it does not send an email immediately.
• Completing the response, disabling recovery emails, or unpublishing the form cancels a pending email.
• Rowform sends at most one recovery email for each partial response. It does not send a follow-up sequence.

Recovery jobs are processed on a schedule, so an eligible email may be sent shortly after the one-hour mark rather than at exactly 60 minutes.

Customize the Message

The subject and rich-text body support these variables:

Keep @resume_link in the email body so the respondent has a clear way to continue. Partial answers are not included in the message.

By default, recovery emails use Rowform’s sender. To send from your own address, first verify a custom SMTP configuration for the workspace, then select its From Email in the recovery settings. The Reply To field controls where replies from respondents are delivered.

Resume Link Security and Expiration

Each recovery link contains a random token; Rowform stores only its SHA-256 hash. The link works only for the matching published form and incomplete partial response, and expires 30 days after the partial response’s last saved activity. It stops working after the response is completed or the form is unpublished.

Anyone with the link can access the saved answers until it expires, so treat it as confidential. Form owners are responsible for having permission to contact respondents and for complying with applicable email and privacy laws.

Monitor Delivery Status

Go to Results > Submissions, enable Show Partials, and check the Recovery column. It can show:

• Scheduled — The partial response is eligible or has an email queued.
• Sent — The email provider accepted the recovery email.
• Failed — Delivery could not be confirmed after the allowed attempts.
• Cancelled — The response or form became ineligible before delivery.
• Not eligible — Recovery is disabled, the selected email is missing or invalid, or the partial has no meaningful answer.

See Partial Responses for more information about reviewing incomplete submissions.

Troubleshooting

• No recipient question is available — Add a standalone Email question. Contact Info email fields are not supported for recovery emails.
• The status says Not eligible — Confirm the automation is enabled and saved, the form is published, and the selected Email question contains a valid address in the partial response.
• The status stays Scheduled — Check the partial’s Last Activity time. Every newly saved answer restarts the one-hour inactivity window.
• The status says Failed — Verify your custom SMTP configuration if you selected one. You can switch back to the default Rowform sender for future partial responses.
• The resume link does not restore the response — It may have expired, the response may already be complete, or the form may no longer be published.

Custom SMTP (Pro)

By default, Rowform sends notification emails from noreply@rowform.io. Pro and LTD users can configure a custom SMTP server so emails are sent from their own domain instead.

Why Use Custom SMTP?

• Emails come from your own address (e.g., support@yourbrand.com) instead of Rowform’s default sender.
• Improves deliverability and brand trust.
• Required if your organization mandates all outbound email go through a specific mail server.

Setting Up Custom SMTP

1. Go to Organization Settings > SMTP Settings.
2. Enter your SMTP server details:
   • Host — Your SMTP server address (e.g., smtp.gmail.com).
   • Port — Usually 587 for TLS or 465 for SSL.
   • Encryption — Choose TLS, SSL, or None.
   • Username — Your SMTP authentication username (often your email address).
   • Password — Your SMTP authentication password or app-specific password.
   • From Email — The sender address recipients will see.
   • From Name — (Optional) A display name for the sender.
3. Click Save Configuration.
4. Click Test Connection to verify your settings. A test email will be sent to your From Email address.
5. Once verified, your custom SMTP email will appear in the From Email dropdown for responder and abandoned-form emails in form-level settings.

Common SMTP Providers

Note: Gmail requires an App Password  if 2-factor authentication is enabled. Your regular Google password won’t work.

Tips

• Use the Reply-To feature to respond directly to form submissions from your inbox.
• Set up notifications early — you don’t want to miss responses while you’re configuring your form.
• For high-volume forms, consider using the Google Sheets integration or webhooks instead of email notifications to avoid inbox overload.
• Prefer real-time alerts? Use the Slack integration alongside or instead of email notifications.
• Pro users: configure Custom SMTP to send notifications from your own domain for better deliverability.
• Use abandoned form recovery when respondents need a secure way to continue saved partial responses.