Forms response not recorded in Excel when clicking a response with no text. It used to show a semicolon in the Excel export. How do I see this response now?

Question

In one of my Forms, one of the sections has multiple questions, but it functions as one big multi-select question, basically. Respondents are asked to pick at least one type of committee they would like to join out of five possible ones. I have a description of the committee as the question text, and the answer is a blank selectable box. This is the easiest way for me to get the data for my Access database and looks cleanest when taking the survey.

When I exported the data in the past, and even in the current data from older surveys taken in 2023-2024, when a blank box is selected it appears as a semicolon in the cell in Excel. But I just received around 500 new responses, and all of these cells are completely blank, no semicolon. I tested it myself to see, and I selected multiple of the blank boxes, and there were no semicolons in the Excel data. I changed the responses to have text in them instead of being blank, and the text did appear in the Excel data when I entered a new survey response, but this did not affect the old responses. Those are considered different answers according to the response overview page. Which means I appear to have no way to recover those 500 responses.

Is this a glitch, or is it really a new design feature of Forms that if you have a textless answer, checking it does nothing in the Excel data, even though I can see in the response overview and individual responses sections in Forms that it was recorded? I cannot go through 500 individual responses to record each one in my Excel data and I shouldn't have to.

Answer 1

Hi Katie, thanks for posting here in Microsoft community, it seems like Microsoft Forms may have changed how it handles blank (textless) checkbox responses in the Excel export, possibly treating them as null values instead of marking them with a semicolon like before.

Since the selections still appear in the Forms response overview, the data is technically captured, just not exported in the same way. Unfortunately, if this is a design change, it might require a workaround like adding placeholder text (e.g., a dash or space) to ensure future responses are recorded in Excel.

You might also consider raising this through Microsoft Support or Feedback Hub to confirm whether this is an intentional update or a regression. Here’s the link: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/customer-service-phone-numbers-c0389ade-5640-e588-8b0e-28de8afeb3f2

 

Also to isolate the issue, have you noticed if this behavior only occurs with newly created Forms, or does it also affect older Forms that previously exported blank selections correctly?

 

I hope this helps you out, let me know how it goes.

Chard

Answer 2

Hi Katie, Since the form has been stable for years and only recent responses are affected, this suggests a change in Microsoft Forms' export behavior, possibly due to a backend update.

The semicolon used to act as a placeholder for unchecked boxes, but now Excel might be interpreting them as true blanks (nulls), which don’t show up at all.

For future data consistency, consider adding a default value or placeholder (like “None” or “-”) to checkbox options.

You might also try re-exporting the data using a different format (CSV instead of XLSX) to see if the semicolons reappear.

If this is critical for reporting, I recommend submitting feedback via the Forms interface or contacting Microsoft 365 support to confirm if this is a known change or regression.

Also, have you noticed if this change affects all checkbox questions in the form, or just specific ones?

Let me know how it goes.

Chard