How to Pre-fill Google Form Answers on iPhone (2026)
Why Pre-fill a Form?
A pre-filled link saves respondents typing and saves you data-cleaning. The classic uses:
- Event and class codes — encode the session, room, or course so nobody mistypes it.
- Personalized sends — each recipient’s name or ID arrives already filled, mail-merge style.
- Repeat submissions — field teams filing the same report daily start from a link with the constant fields done.
- Cleaner analytics — pre-filled categorical fields arrive in a consistent format instead of five spellings of the same answer.
The whole workflow runs fine from an iPhone; the only awkward part is that the generated URLs are long, which is why step 5 below matters.
Step-by-Step on iPhone
- Open forms.google.com in Safari and open your form in the editor.
- Tap the ⋮ (three-dot) menu in the top-right corner.
- Tap Get pre-filled link. The form opens in a fill-in preview.
- Enter values only in the fields you want pre-completed. Leave everything else untouched.
- Tap Get link in the bar at the bottom, then Copy link.
If the ⋮ menu feels cramped in mobile Safari, use the ᴀA button → Request Desktop Website and repeat — the desktop editor exposes the same menu with more room. (That desktop-site dance is the recurring tax of the mobile web editor; our Forms for Google Drive iOS app exists precisely to eliminate it — same forms, native interface.)
How the Link Actually Works
Look at the URL you copied and you will see pairs like entry.842919?=Chemistry+101. Each entry.XXXXX is one question’s internal ID and the text after = is the pre-filled value. Two practical consequences:
- You can personalize at scale. Paste the link into a spreadsheet column, and generate one row per recipient by swapping just the value part. Send each person their own URL and their identity field arrives pre-completed.
- Editing the form can silently break old links. Deleting and re-adding a question gives it a new ID, so regenerate pre-filled links after structural edits.
Values for multiple-choice, dropdown, and checkbox questions must match an existing option exactly — a mismatched value just leaves the question blank.
Pre-fill + QR Codes: The Event Combo
Because a pre-filled link is an ordinary URL, it drops straight into a QR code. Print one QR per room or session with the location field pre-encoded, and every scan submits clean, consistent data — no typing, no typos, no “which session were you in?” cleanup afterwards. If you use Forms for Google Drive, QR generation is built into the app’s sharing tools, so the link-to-QR step happens without leaving the form.
Limits Worth Knowing
- Respondents can always change pre-filled values — nothing is locked.
- File upload questions cannot be pre-filled at all.
- Pre-filled links bypass nothing: response limits, deadlines, and sign-in settings still apply exactly as configured.
If what you actually need is different questions for different people rather than different starting values, that is a job for branching logic instead.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a pre-filled Google Form link?
It is a special URL that opens your form with some answers already completed. You choose which fields get which values when you generate the link; respondents see those answers filled in and can change them before submitting. The form itself is unchanged — only that specific link carries the values.
Can respondents edit the pre-filled answers?
Yes, always. Pre-filling only supplies a starting value — every field remains editable before submission. Google Forms has no way to lock a pre-filled field as read-only. If you need a value respondents cannot change, put it in the link and also record it server-side, or use a hidden convention like a code they should not touch.
Can I pre-fill every question type?
Most but not all. Short answer, paragraph, multiple choice, checkboxes, dropdown, and grid questions all support pre-filling. File upload questions cannot be pre-filled, and date/time fields can be inconsistent across devices. When you generate the link, any question you left blank simply opens empty.
Can I generate different pre-filled links for different people?
Yes — that is the main use case. The pre-filled URL puts each answer in a query parameter (entry.12345=value), so once you have one link you can duplicate the pattern and swap the value per person: paste the link into a spreadsheet, edit the parameter values, and send each person their own URL. This is how mail-merge style personalization is done with Google Forms.
Does pre-filling work with QR codes?
Perfectly. A pre-filled link is still just a URL, so you can turn it into a QR code like any other form link. Event organizers use this to encode the session name or location into the QR poster for each room, so every scan arrives with that field already completed.
Why does my pre-filled link show a blank form?
Three usual causes: the link was truncated when copied (they are long — send it as a hyperlink, not raw text, in apps that cut long strings); the question was edited after the link was generated, which can change its entry ID; or the value for a choice question does not exactly match an existing option. Regenerate the link after any form edits.