An elegant way to switch account to view Google Form

Published: 2021-03-22 04:09:21

*Note: I have tested this tip on Google Chrome only. I believe it will work for other browsers too, especially Brave, which is based on Chromium*

One day, you have a Google Form link which you can only access using a specific email. For example, your school/organization shares with you a Google Form link which only people in the organization can access using emails provided by that organization.

## The problem

Then, you log in to that email in your browser, open the link and see a disappointing page:

![1. You need permission.JPG](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1616317411016/uLYUUQoUf.jpeg)

Oops! Why is that?

Well, if you have multiple Google accounts in your browser (or multiple Gmail accounts logged in), then Google Form will automatically use the **default account** (which is the first account that you log in) to check if you have the permission to view that form or not. If the default account is the account you need to view the form, you won't face any permission issues and you can skip this post. Otherwise, you can continue reading.

## The solution

The following trick is the most elegant solution that I know. Other solutions will be discussed at the end of the post.

If you open a **new** tab of Chrome browser and click on the image of your account at the top right corner, you can see the list of your accounts.


![2. Multiple accounts.JPG](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1616320077572/SwcD9O5HF.jpeg)

Each of these accounts has an **id** that associated with it. Ids of these accounts start from **0** and increment by 1 for each account below, in the order that they appear in the list. For example, the first account in your list (and the biggest one) has an id of 0, the second one's id is 1, the third one's id is 2, and so on.

![3. Multiple accounts with id.JPG](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1616320028162/WnnZ_uc-C.jpeg)

Remember the id of the account that you need to view the form. Suppose its id is **2**. 

Firstly, you copy the link (or URL) of your Google Form and paste it into the search bar of your browser. Suppose the link is 
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/KdfdfryLZjaEQV6sPeFck1tQ8MdgtddctCuEHed8>

In order to view the Google Form using that account, you just need to add **/u/2** after the part <https://docs.google.com/forms> in the URL, then hit Enter and now you can see the form. For example, if your Google Form URL is like this:

<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/KdfdfryLZjaEQV6sPeFck1tQ8MdgtddctCuEHed8>

You just need to change it into this:

<https://docs.google.com/forms/u/2/d/KdfdfryLZjaEQV6sPeFck1tQ8MdgtddctCuEHed8>

![4. Change URL.JPG](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1616320892085/QtCBMhEdt.jpeg)

Congratulation! Now you can view the form (or have permission to view the form, so to speak).

Note: this pattern also emerges when you open Gmail in your browser. Just look at the link in the browser and you can know the id of the account that you're using. 

![5. Pattern in gmail.JPG](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1616322002561/2Wl01dA7P.jpeg)

Can you see the **/u/0** part? **0** is the id of the account that you're using. You can also use this to find the id of the account that you need. Just switch to that account, open Gmail, and find the id in the link.

Summary of steps:

1. Find the id of the account you need and remember it (see instructions above).
2. Copy the link of the Google Form and paste it in the Search Bar.
3. Suppose the id of the account you need is x. Add **/u/x** after the <https://docs.google.com/forms>. Do this directly on the search bar. **DO NOT MODIFY ANYTHING ELSE**.
4. Hit Enter and enjoy the result.


Some other solutions for solving this problem including:
- Sign out all of your accounts and then sign in with the account you need, so it becomes the default account.
- Open an incognito window in Chrome and sign in with the account you need, then open the link in that window.
- Add another user on Chrome and sign in with the account you need on Chrome of that user.

All these solutions require logging in to one or multiple account (even signing out), so it's ineffective and time-consuming (you need to type username and password over and over whenever you need to see the form). Therefore, I believe the above tip is the most elegant one. 

You can try to apply this tip with other services, not just Google Form. I strongly believe that it will work for some other services. This pattern also emerges when you open Gmail in your browser:

![5. Pattern in gmail.JPG](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1616322002561/2Wl01dA7P.jpeg)