Yeah, this is such a bummer, why have form software and email field format, if the form doesn’t actually do anything from setting that field type. Seems like a relatively easy push for Airtable to implement.
I feel like Airtable Forms are very much second-class citizens, in that they just need a tad bit more work to make Airtable a great alternative to most form software. But it hasn’t seen any update in years.
We agree this is a very much-needed feature for the Airtable email field. That's why we've built a solution in the miniExtensions Form. By default, our form ensures the email field only accepts valid addresses. Additionally, you can configure default values, apply regex validation, and enable features like automatic lowercase conversion.
For example, here’s a regex that only accepts Gmail addresses: