Email templates control the wording of every email LimeSurvey sends for your survey: invitations and reminders to people in your participant list, the confirmation participants receive after finishing, the registration email for people who sign themselves up, and the admin notifications sent to you when a response arrives. Each template has a subject line and a message body, and both can be personalised with placeholders that are filled in per recipient at send time. Templates are edited per survey — changes affect only that survey.
The editing screen has six template tabs:
| Template | When it is sent |
|---|---|
| Invitation | When you invite participants who have not yet received an invitation (Participants → Invite & remind). |
| Reminder | When you remind participants who have been invited but have not completed the survey. |
| Confirmation | Automatically after a participant with an access code completes the survey, unless the Send confirmation emails toggle is turned off (editor Settings → Participant settings). |
| Registration | When someone self-registers for a survey that allows public registration; it contains their personal access link. |
| Basic admin notification | A short notification to you — not participants — when a response arrives. |
| Detailed admin notification | The same trigger, but including the full response details. |
Email templates live on a classic admin screen shared by both editors. In the new editor, reach the Survey menu via the left toolbar (or via the Share tab at the top of the editor → Participant lists, which opens the classic participants area with the Survey menu sidebar).
Before sending, click Validate ExpressionScript to check that your placeholders are written correctly. The screen has two other controls: Reset this template restores the default text, and "Invitation attachments:" → Add file attaches files to the email.
Placeholders are replaced with real values for each recipient when the email is sent. The default invitation body already uses {FIRSTNAME}, {SURVEYNAME} and {SURVEYDESCRIPTION}.
| Placeholder | Becomes |
|---|---|
{FIRSTNAME} / {LASTNAME} | Recipient's first / last name |
{EMAIL} | Recipient's email address |
{SURVEYNAME} | Survey title |
{SURVEYDESCRIPTION} | Survey description |
{SURVEYURL} | The recipient's personal survey link |
{TOKEN} | The recipient's personal access code |
{OPTOUTURL} | Link to opt out of further emails for this survey |
{ADMINNAME} / {ADMINEMAIL} | Survey administrator's name / email address |
{ATTRIBUTE_1}, {ATTRIBUTE_2}, … | Custom participant attributes |
Always keep {SURVEYURL} in invitations and reminders — without it, recipients have no way into the survey. When a recipient uses {OPTOUTURL}, their status changes to opted-out and future sends skip them.