Make Google form not require sign in: find it

The sign-in screen does not come from the questions. It comes from a setting that decides who may answer and how the form identifies them. Google asks for an account when the form has to match each answer to a verified address, when it has to stop one person sending two replies, or when an organization has limited who can answer. Each of these is a simple switch, so the owner rarely sees the effect. The owner is signed in already, and the form opens straight to the questions for them. A stranger without a Google account meets the wall before reading a word.

• In the form's Settings, check whether email collection is set to verified, which needs a sign-in.
• Check the one-response limit. It needs a sign-in, so turn it off or ask for an email as a plain question.
• If the form belongs to a Google Workspace organization, look for a restriction to people in that organization.
• Open the link in a private window with no Google account signed in, and note the first screen the visitor sees.

The owner opens the form from the Google Forms editor, already signed in with a Google account. The editor and the live form use that same account, so the owner moves past any wall without noticing it. A stranger arrives from a link in a newsletter, an email or a flyer, with no Google session in the browser. If the form asks for sign-in at that point, the visitor sees a Google sign-in page instead of the form. A visitor signed in with a different account may be turned away at the same screen. Neither outcome shows a question, and neither is a fault in the questions.

Run the signed-out check on both a phone and a laptop. Your own browser never shows the wall, so do not use it as the test. Each run should end on the first question if the form is open to the public, and on the sign-in screen if it is not. Each run should end on the first question if the form is open to the public, and on the sign-in screen if it is not.

The fix depends on why the setting was on. If verified email collection was switched on to get a reliable address, keep the address and drop the verification: add a plain question for the email and say in its wording that it is the address you will reply to. If the one-response limit was set to stop duplicates, a plain question cannot enforce that rule, so the trade-off is real. Decide whether duplicates matter more than a visitor who has no Google account. For most small forms, a duplicate is a smaller problem than a form nobody can open.

If the form sits inside a Workspace organization, the restriction to people in that organization is the strongest of the three. It stops every outside visitor, including people you invited from your own mailing list. Turn it off only if the form is meant for the public. If it must stay limited, the run cannot pass a Google sign-in, so the simulated visitor stops at the same wall a stranger meets, and that result is correct for a limited form.

A simulated visitor opens the link in a real browser with no Google account. If the first screen is a sign-in page, the run stops there and reports that step, with a screenshot of the page and any error recorded on it. If the first screen is a question, the run carries on through the form. Either way you see the screen a stranger sees, which is the view that matters for a public form. The run does not read your Settings, so it cannot tell you which setting caused the wall. Use the checks above for that. After you change a setting, run the same link again and look for the first question on the screen.

Any editor with access to the form can change its Settings, and a new collaborator may switch a setting on without telling you. After each change, open the link in a private window with no Google account signed in and check the first screen. A form that opened to questions last month can sit behind a sign-in screen after one toggle, and the signed-out run is the only check that catches it.