Still fine to change
- Wording — Question titles, descriptions, and option labels. Existing answers keep the value they were recorded with.
- New questions — Adding a question is always allowed. Earlier respondents simply have no answer for it.
- Settings — Branding, completion screen, notifications, progress indicator, display mode.
Blocked once responses exist
- Deleting a question that has answers — Deleting it would throw away real data. You will see a message naming the question and suggesting you duplicate the survey instead.
- Changing a question's type — Answers are stored in a shape that matches the type. Switching from Checkboxes to Rating leaves answers that no longer parse.
- Turning anonymity off — If responses were collected anonymously, a promise was made to the people who answered. That cannot be revoked after the fact.
Tip
The safe route for a bigger change
Duplicate the survey, make the changes on the copy, and field that as a new version. The original keeps its data intact and stays readable.
If it is the same study on a repeating schedule, use New wave instead — you get the same fresh start plus trend lines against the previous run.
Stopping collection
Close the survey. The link keeps working and shows respondents a page saying collection has ended, your results stay exactly where they are, and you can reopen any time. See “Closing a survey”.
Unpublish is a different thing: it puts the survey back to draft, as if it had never been live, and it is only offered while the survey has no responses at all.