How to See Responses in Microsoft Forms (2026)
Every submission to a Microsoft Form lands under the Responses tab in real time. You can read a chart-based summary, open submissions one at a time, see who responded, and export everything to Excel for deeper analysis.
1. Open the Responses Tab
- Open your form at forms.office.com.
- At the top, switch from Questions to Responses.
The tab header shows the total response count and the average completion time.
2. Read the Summary
The Responses tab summarizes every question automatically:
- Choice questions appear as pie or bar charts.
- Rating and NPS show averages and distributions.
- Text questions list recent answers with a More link to see all.
This view is the fastest way to read overall results without opening each submission.
3. Open Individual Submissions
- Click View results (or Results).
- Use the left/right arrows to page through each respondent’s full answers.
- For internal forms with Record name on, each result shows the respondent’s name and submission time.
4. Filter and Sort
- In View results, use the dropdown to jump to a specific respondent.
- Open the data in Excel (see below) to filter, sort, and pivot — Forms itself keeps filtering light.
5. Open Results in Excel
- On the Responses tab, click Open in Excel (or Open results in Excel).
- A workbook downloads (or opens in Excel for the web) with one row per response and one column per question — ideal for sorting and charts.
6. Troubleshooting
Responses aren’t showing up
Confirm you’re signed into the same account that owns the form, and that respondents actually clicked Submit (not just opened the link).
I see counts but no names
Names only appear when the form is set to people in my organization with Record name on. Anyone can respond forms are anonymous by design.
A collaborator can’t see results
Share the form with the Collaborate link (view and edit), not just the response link, so teammates can open the Responses tab.
The Excel file won’t update with new responses
Open in Excel exports a snapshot, not a live link. Re-export to capture responses received since your last download, or use the For Excel option that creates a workbook in OneDrive that refreshes.
Related Microsoft Forms guides: How to use Microsoft Forms · How to export to Excel · How to create a survey · How to share Microsoft Forms · How to make Microsoft Forms anonymous
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