Yes, you can make a Notion form anonymous. Open the form’s sharing settings and turn on Anonymous responses, and Notion stops recording each respondent’s name. If you share the form with Anyone on the web with link, every response is anonymous automatically.
That hides the name. Whether the answers stay anonymous depends on what you ask.
How to make an anonymous Notion form
An anonymous Notion form is one where Notion does not save who submitted each response. Notion’s forms help page says you can “toggle Anonymous responses on or off depending on whether you want the respondent’s name to be recorded”.
- Open the form view in your database.
- Click Share at the top of the form.
- Pick who can respond: anyone in your workspace with the link, or anyone on the web with the link.
- For a workspace-only form, switch on Anonymous responses.
- Delete or hide the
Respondentcolumn if it already holds names from earlier tests.
Web-link forms skip step 4: Notion says their respondents “will automatically be anonymous”.
What Notion records under each sharing setting
Notion records a name only for workspace forms with anonymity off. Here is each combination, from the Notion help center.
| Sharing setting | Anonymous responses | Name saved? | Access to submission |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anyone at your workspace with link | Off | Yes, in Respondent or Created by |
Available |
| Anyone at your workspace with link | On | No | Not available |
| Anyone on the web with link | Automatic | No | Not available |
| No access | n/a | Form closed | n/a |
New forms get a Respondent property automatically. Forms built on an existing database don’t, so you add a Created by property yourself if you want names.
The common mistake: a team lead duplicates a feedback template, shares it inside the workspace, and assumes it’s private. The Respondent column fills with names from the first submission. Check the toggle before you send the link.
Anonymous and confidential are not the same
An anonymous form means nobody can link answers back to the person, and a confidential form means you can, but you promise not to share that link. The University of Minnesota’s survey guidance defines anonymous surveys as ones where “no one, including the researcher, is able to connect a respondent” to the answers.
Brandeis University’s research office puts it bluntly: no activity can ever be both anonymous and confidential. Pick one and tell people which.
Use anonymous for staff feedback, harassment reports or honest product criticism. Use confidential when you need to follow up, as with a support request or a wellbeing check.
UMN also says you must describe how you’ll protect each respondent’s identity and answers. A one-line note at the top of the form does it.
Questions that break anonymity
The Anonymous responses toggle hides the name field, not the answers. Respondents can still be identified by what they type.
- Email or phone questions. An email field is a name in disguise. Remove it.
- Narrow demographics. “Team” plus “years at company” can point at one person in a small startup.
- Free text. People mention their own projects, clients or managers without thinking.
- Person and relation properties. A Notion person field records someone by design.
Need a follow-up channel? Add an optional “Leave an email if you want a reply” question and say that filling it in removes anonymity. For more on what’s safe to collect, see collecting personal data with a Notion form.
What you give up with an anonymous form
Anonymity costs you control over submissions and follow-up. The Notion help center only offers Access to submission when the form is workspace-only and anonymity is off. With anonymity on, respondents can’t view or edit what they sent.
The UMN guidance lists two more costs. Public links let one respondent submit more than once. And you can’t tell who hasn’t answered, so reminders go to the whole list, which can lead to survey fatigue.
My take: in a team of five or six, don’t promise anonymity on a pulse survey. Call it confidential. With so few respondents, writing style alone often gives people away, and a false promise of anonymity does more damage than an honest “only I will read this”.
Who can see responses to an anonymous Notion form
Anyone with at least Can view access to the connected database can read the responses, anonymous or not. An anonymous form is only as private as its database.
Put the database in a private page or a restricted teamspace before you share the form. On the Enterprise plan, workspace owners can also stop members from publishing forms to anyone on the web. Sharing outside your team? Our guide on sharing a Notion form publicly walks through the link settings.
Anonymous forms with nDBForms
nDBForms forms are public web pages, so respondents fill them in without a Notion account or a sign-in. The form sends only the fields you add to your Notion database, so leave out name and email questions and responses arrive nameless.
The limit: nDBForms analytics track views, completions, devices, referrers and countries, and each response is also stored in nDBForms’ own database for the dashboard and retries. A research study that needs strict anonymity should check those details against its requirements before using it. For a ready-made survey layout, start from the form templates.
For more survey set-ups, see the Notion survey guide and the feedback survey template.
FAQ
Are Notion forms anonymous by default?
Only when the form is shared with Anyone on the web with link. Workspace-only forms record the respondent’s name in a Respondent property unless you turn on Anonymous responses.
Can the form owner see who filled out an anonymous Notion form?
Notion does not record the name, but the answers themselves can still identify someone. An email question, a free-text answer or a tiny team can give a person away.
Why can’t I find Access to submission on my form?
Notion only offers Access to submission when the form is limited to your workspace and Anonymous responses is off. An anonymous form cannot link a response back to a person.
Can someone submit an anonymous Notion form more than once?
Yes. Public, anonymous links have no way to tell repeat respondents apart, so one person can answer several times.