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How to Send Automatic Emails After Microsoft Forms Submissions

Maira Mehtab Sep 22, 2026 869 views

Question details

The user wants to automatically send a confirmation or follow-up email to external respondents who manually enter their email address in a Microsoft Form.

Product: Microsoft Forms and Power Automate
Device & OS: not provided
Scenario: Automating email responses for external form submissions.
Observed behavior: Microsoft Forms does not natively send automated emails to external users based on manually entered email addresses without additional workflow setup.

Before you start

Ensure you have access to both Microsoft Forms and Power Automate with an active Microsoft 365 account, and that your form includes a required field for respondents to enter their email address.

Solution 1Recommended

Use Power Automate to Send Confirmation Emails

Create an automated workflow in Power Automate to capture the email address from the form submission and send a customized email.

Because Microsoft Forms does not natively support emailing external addresses entered by respondents, Power Automate acts as the bridge. It triggers an action every time a form is submitted, retrieves the provided data, and sends out the email.

Create a new automated flow

Log into Power Automate, click 'Create' on the left sidebar, and select 'Automated cloud flow'.

Select the form trigger

Name your flow, search for and select the trigger 'When a new response is submitted' under Microsoft Forms, then click Create.

Choose your form

In the trigger setup box, use the 'Form Id' dropdown menu to select the specific Microsoft Form you want to track.

Get response details

Click 'New step', search for 'Get response details', and select it. Choose your form again in the 'Form Id' field, and click the 'Response Id' field to add the dynamic content for Response Id.

Add the email action

Click 'New step' again, search for 'Send an email (V2)', and select the Office 365 Outlook action.

Configure email content

In the 'To' field, insert the dynamic content corresponding to the email address question from your form. Fill out the Subject and Body with your desired confirmation message, then save and test your flow.

Validation Tip: Make sure to validate the email address field in your Microsoft Form using Restrictions to prevent flow failures due to invalid email formats.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can Microsoft Forms send email receipts without Power Automate?

By default, Microsoft Forms can only send automatic email receipts to respondents who are inside your organization and logged in. For external respondents who manually enter their email, you must use Power Automate to send a receipt.

Why is my Power Automate email flow failing?

Flows often fail if the respondent enters an invalid email address format in the form. Ensure your form has data validation enabled for the email field so users are forced to enter a correctly formatted email address.

Can I customize the automated email based on user answers?

Yes, in the 'Send an email (V2)' action in Power Automate, you can insert dynamic content from the 'Get response details' step to include their specific form answers directly in the email body.

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