Customize Confirmation and Reminder Email Messages

Add a personal note to the response confirmation emails and reminder emails your respondents receive. Includes how to add a separate, reminder-only message.

You can add a custom message that appears at the top of the response confirmation emails respondents receive after submitting your form, and at the top of any reminder emails you send. The same message powers both by default, and you can optionally set a different message for reminders only.

Sections in This Guide

ADD A CUSTOM MESSAGE TO CONFIRMATION AND REMINDER EMAILS

This is the main custom message setting on your form. By default, anything you save here appears highlighted at the top of both confirmation emails (sent immediately after a respondent submits) and reminder emails (sent before events).

Step 1: Open the form's Form Options page

Start on your Dashboard. On the form's card, click Options to open the Form Options page.

Step 2: Open the Form Settings card

Scroll down to the Form Settings card on the Form Options page.

Step 3: Expand "Custom Email Message"

Inside the Form Settings card, click the Custom Email Message button to expand the section. If a message is already saved, you'll see a green Active badge next to the label.

Step 4: Type your message

Enter your message in the textarea. The help text reads: "This message will be highlighted at the top of confirmation emails and reminder emails sent to respondents." Use this for things like parking instructions, what to bring, a thank-you note, or a link to the venue.

Step 5: Save

Click Save Message. To remove the message later, expand the same section and click Clear.

SET A DIFFERENT MESSAGE FOR REMINDERS ONLY

If you want reminder emails to say something different from the confirmation email (for example, a confirmation message that welcomes the respondent, and a reminder message that gives last-minute logistics), you can override the form-level message inside Reminder Settings.

Step 1: Open Reminder Settings

From your Dashboard, click Options on the form's card. Scroll to the Form Settings section and click Setup on Automatic Reminders. (For full reminder setup, see Setup Automatic Reminders.)

Step 2: Find the Custom Message (Optional) card

Scroll to the bottom of the Reminder Settings page to the Custom Message (Optional) card.

Step 3: Enter a reminder-only message

Type the message you want in reminders. The help text spells out the override behavior:

  • If your form already has a Custom Email Message saved, the help text reads: "Leave blank to use your form's existing custom confirmation message in reminders. Anything you enter here will replace it for reminders only."
  • If your form has no Custom Email Message saved yet, the help text reads: "If your form has a custom confirmation message, reminders will use that by default. Add a message here to override it for reminders."

Step 4: Preview and save

Use the Preview Your Reminder Email section just below to send yourself a test reminder and see how the message renders. Then click Save Reminder Settings at the bottom of the page.

How the two settings combine:

  • Form-level Custom Email Message set, reminder-level blank → both confirmation and reminder emails use the form-level message.
  • Form-level set, reminder-level set → confirmation emails use the form-level message; reminder emails use the reminder-level message.
  • Form-level blank, reminder-level set → confirmation emails have no custom message; reminder emails use the reminder-level message.
  • Both blank → no custom message in either.

Both fields are plain-text textareas: there is no rich-text editor, no bold/italic toolbar, and markdown is not supported. A few things still happen automatically when the email is rendered:

  • URLs are auto-linkified. Paste a URL like https://example.com/event-details directly into the textarea and it will appear as a clickable teal link in the email. URLs without http:// or https:// (e.g. example.com) are also detected and linked.
  • Trailing punctuation is handled. If you write "Visit example.com.", the period is left outside the link so it doesn't break the URL.
  • Line breaks are preserved. Pressing Enter to start a new paragraph in the textarea will render as a line break in the email.
  • You can't customize link text. The URL itself is the link text — there is no way to write something like "click here" and have it link to a hidden URL.
  • HTML and scripts are stripped. Anything that looks like HTML tags is escaped for security, so don't paste raw HTML expecting it to render.

If you need a richer message, the simplest approach is to write the relevant info in plain English and include any links inline as full URLs, e.g. "Bring a yoga mat. Directions to the studio: https://maps.example.com/studio-location".