Formsafe Contact FormDuplicate contact form submissions: stopping the double click
Duplicates happen when a visitor clicks Send twice, or presses it again because nothing seemed to happen. The fix has two halves: lock the button while the form is sending, and have the server treat an identical message from the same form within a short window as one entry.
Why it happens
- A slow server or mail setup leaves the visitor waiting with no sign of progress.
- Some forms show one error message per click, stacking copies on the page and inviting another click.
- On a phone, a double tap is easy.
- A visitor refreshing the thank-you page can resend the form in plugins that don't redirect after a submission.
Why the browser half isn't enough
Disabling the button with JavaScript stops most double clicks, but not a refresh, a flaky connection that retries, or a visitor with JavaScript off. The server has to recognise a repeat too.
What Formsafe does
Formsafe Contact Form locks the Send button while a message is on its way. On the server, the same content sent to the same form within 60 seconds becomes one entry, not two — so you get one notification and one row in Entries. Without JavaScript, a successful submission ends with a redirect back to the page, so refreshing it doesn't send the form again.
The check covers the form, the sender's IP address and everything they typed, held as a short hash for those 60 seconds and then forgotten. Two different people who send the same words are never merged into one entry, and the address itself isn't stored.
Checking your current form
Send your form, then press Send again as fast as you can, and try refreshing the page afterwards. Count the entries and the notifications you get. If you get two of either, the double-click problem is live on your site.
Formsafe Contact Form is a free contact form that saves every entry before it sends anything, and shows you what happened to each email.
See what it does