How to Send Prefilled Airtable Forms by Email Without Breaking the Link

You want to send a prefilled Airtable form by email, built from the information already stored in your records such as first name, last name, and email.

To do this, you create a formula field that generates the prefilled form link. The formula looks like this:

"https://airtable.com/appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/pagXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/form"
& "?prefill_First%20Name=" & ENCODE_URL_COMPONENT({First Name})
& "&prefill_Last%20Name=" & ENCODE_URL_COMPONENT({Last Name})
& "&prefill_Email=" & ENCODE_URL_COMPONENT({Email})

When you copy and paste this link into a browser, it works perfectly. The form opens and all fields are prefilled.

The problem comes when you send this link using Airtable’s Send Email automation. The link in the email is broken. The underscores in the prefill_ parameters disappear except for the last one.

So instead of:

?prefill_First%20Name=John

you see this in the email:

?prefillFirst%20Name=John

Here is how the link looks when it is received in the email:

https://airtable.com/XXXXXXXXXXXXXX/XXXXXXXXXXXXXX/form?prefillFirst%20Name=John&prefillLast%20Name=Doe&[email protected]

Only prefill_Email keeps the underscore. The rest lose it, which breaks the prefill link.

So why do the underscores disappear in the email?

And how can you send your prefilled form links by email without them breaking?

The issue is that the Send Email automation supports Markdown inside the body. In Markdown, the underscore is a special formatting character and is read as a signal for italics.

So when your link includes parameters like prefill_First%20Name, the body of the email interprets the underscore as Markdown rather than as part of the URL.

Now, how do you fix this?

Instead of dropping the raw formula field into the email body, wrap it in Markdown link formatting. That way Airtable processes the underscores correctly and sends the link exactly as you built it.

Here is the format to use in your automation:

[Update your details here]({Prefilled Form Link})

The text in brackets is what the recipient sees in the email, and the formula field with the prefilled link goes inside the parentheses.

With this approach, your contacts get a proper clickable link, and all the prefilled fields work exactly as expected.

Now, since we are talking about prefilling and using it to update records, it is worth noting that prefilled links come with a few downsides.

• You need to keep sending updated prefilled links to your users to make sure they always see the latest data. If someone clicks an old link, they will see outdated information in the form. That means users cannot reliably reuse or bookmark the link.

• Prefilled links do not work well with every field type. For example, attachments or very long text fields can push the link beyond URL character limits, which causes problems.

• If you care about privacy or security, prefilled links are not ideal since all of the data is exposed right inside the URL.

If you are running into any of these issues or you want a smoother solution, Fillout is a great option.

Fillout gives you far more flexibility than Airtable forms. It supports updating records, adding conditional logic and calculations, collecting signatures, and many other features that Airtable forms do not provide.

If the limitations of prefilled links are getting in your way, switching to Fillout forms is usually the better choice.