What is stopping your Canvas submission?
Find the row that matches your screen. Each meaning is quoted from Instructure’s Canvas guides.
| What you see | What Instructure says | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| No Start Assignment button | “your instructor may want you to submit your assignment in a different way or the availability date has passed.” | Read the assignment description, then check its dates. Ask your instructor if neither explains it. |
| “Not Available Until” a date | “the assignment is locked until the specified date.” | Come back on that date. |
| “Closed” | “the assignment cannot accept submissions.” | Your instructor sets the dates, so only they can change them. |
| New Attempt is grayed out | “Once you have used all your submission attempts, the New Attempt button displays as disabled.” | Ask your instructor. The attempt limit is their setting. |
| Your file is not accepted | “not all file types may be available for your assignment submission.” | Save the file in the type the instructions ask for and upload it again. |
| No Google Drive tab | “your institution has not enabled this feature.” | Download the file from Google Drive and submit it as a file upload. |
| An error from the Google Drive tab | “If the assignment uses file restrictions, submitting through the Google Drive tab results in an error.” | Download the file and use the File Upload tab instead, as Instructure suggests. |
| The page looks different or opens another tool | An External Tool assignment’s page “may appear differently depending on the tool.” | Follow that tool’s steps inside the assignment. |
| The course is under Past Enrollments | Concluded courses are “a read-only archived course,” and you “can no longer participate.” | You can’t submit there, though you can still view and download what you submitted. Contact your instructor (past courses on Canvas). |
| The course is under Future Enrollments | You “cannot fully participate in the course until the start date,” and participation includes “submitting assignments.” | Wait for the course start date. |
How do you submit an assignment on Canvas?
Through the assignment page. Instructure’s student guide lists these steps:
- In Course Navigation, click Assignments. You can also reach an assignment from the Dashboard, Syllabus, Calendar or Modules.
- Click the assignment’s name.
- Click Start Assignment.
- Pick the tab your instructor allowed: File Upload, Text Entry, Website URL, Media or Student Annotation. “You can only select one submission type per submission.”
- Click Submit Assignment.
Some courses use Instructure’s Assignment Enhancements, and the page looks different. Its steps skip Start Assignment: you pick a type in the “Choose a submission type” section on the assignment page, and your work is saved as a draft. Instructure says to tick the pledge checkbox before you submit, and with a text entry “you must save the submission draft before you can submit the assignment.” If only one type is allowed, that section doesn’t appear.
What does a missing Start Assignment button mean?
Instructure gives two reasons. “Not all of your assignments may be submitted online,” so your instructor may want the work turned in some other way, which the assignment description should explain. Or the assignment’s availability dates have passed.
The Assignments page shows those dates next to each assignment:
- No date listed: the assignment is open, and you can submit it at any time during the course.
- Available until [date]: you can submit until that date.
- Not Available Until [date]: it is locked until then. You can read the details and rubric, but not submit.
- Closed: you can still see the rubric and any earlier submission in the sidebar, but “you can no longer view the assignment details or submit/re-submit the assignment.”
Watch for midnight. Instructure says that if the listed date is set to 12 am, the last day to submit is the day before: an assignment “Available until December 15” can be accessed “until December 14 at 11:59 pm.”
A due date is not a cutoff. “You can still submit late assignments before the Available until date,” though Instructure warns that “submitting one second late will be marked as late” (how the Canvas late penalty works). For timed quizzes, see what happens when a Canvas quiz time limit runs out.
Why is the New Attempt button grayed out?
You have used every attempt your instructor allowed. Instructure says an assignment with a limit shows the number of attempts you have made and the number allowed, and the button is disabled once they match. In Assignment Enhancements courses, Instructure adds a second cause: “the assignment may no longer be accepting submissions due to the assignment’s availability dates.”
Instructure’s instructor guide also notes that “the option to resubmit an assignment may not be available for external tool assignments.” When you do resubmit, you see only your latest submission, though “instructors can view all of your submissions” (what happens when you resubmit).
Why won’t Canvas accept my file?
Check whether the assignment limits file types. Instructure’s instructor guide describes a Restrict Upload File Types checkbox with an Allowed File Extensions field, so an assignment can accept a short list of extensions and refuse the rest. The student guide puts it this way: “Depending on the assignment submission type set by your instructor, not all file types may be available for your assignment submission.”
- Size: Canvas does not take uploads over 5 GB. Large files show a status indicator while they upload, so wait for it to finish.
- More than one file: click Add Another File. Instructure notes that extra files can only come from your computer.
- Group work: “Group assignments do not support the student annotation submission type.”
- Mistakes: “once the file has been uploaded as a submission, you cannot delete the file.” Submitted files are kept in the Submissions folder of your user files.
How do you submit a Google Doc on Canvas?
Use the Google Drive tab if your school turned it on. Instructure says “Canvas accepts Google Doc, Google Sheet, and Google Slide files,” plus Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files stored in Drive that were not converted to Google format.
- Open the assignment and click Start Assignment.
- Click the Google Drive tab. Authorize the connection or sign in to Google if asked.
- Pick the file in the File Picker and click Select.
- Click Submit to confirm the file, then Submit Assignment.
- Canvas says the submission is processing. You can leave the page, and you get an email when it finishes.
- One file only, and it is converted to Word, Excel or PowerPoint, so “any changes made to the file in Google Drive will not be updated in the submission.”
- No tab? Instructure says your school hasn’t enabled it. If the tab is there but your course has no Google Drive link in Course Navigation, connect Google Drive as a web service in your Canvas profile first.
- File not listed? Check the allowed file types. Instructure tells instructors that to accept only Google Slides they must also allow .pptx, “otherwise Canvas will not show the .gslide files in the Google Doc tab.”
Without the tab, download the file and submit it as a File Upload, or submit its link as a Website URL. Make the link shareable first: “If a shareable link is not created, your instructor will not have permission to view your file.” Schools using Google Assignments LTI 1.3 show an Open to attach and submit button instead.
What if the assignment opens in another tool?
Then it is probably an External Tool assignment. Instructure says the submission page “may appear differently depending on the tool,” so the Canvas tabs above may not be there at all. Follow the tool’s own steps, and ask your instructor if the tool won’t load. Instructure also notes that Assignment Enhancements “does not support Cloud Assignments.”
How do you see submitted assignments on Canvas?
Open Grades in Course Navigation, click the assignment’s name and look for the submission confirmation. Those are the steps in Instructure’s guide to knowing when an assignment has been submitted. Other signs:
- The sidebar: right after you submit, it shows your submission details, and for a file upload, a link to download it.
- Assignment Enhancements courses: “A successfully submitted assignment displays a Submitted status” in the Progress Tracker, and the Attempt menu lists earlier attempts.
- Google Drive files: an uploading icon means it is queued. If you see the upload failed icon, “Click the download submission link to view the error.”
- Confetti: if your account has it turned on, Canvas plays it when you submit on time.
The assignment stays on your Assignments page and the Syllabus after you submit, so its listing there doesn’t mean it failed. Once it is graded, the Grades link shows a grading indicator. To work out what the score does to your course grade, use our free Canvas grade calculator, or see how What-If grades work. If the assignment has peer reviews, they open once your work is in (how to do a peer review on Canvas).
Where Silent Student fits
We make Silent Student, a desktop app for Mac and Windows that signs in to your Canvas in its own browser and works quizzes, essays, discussion posts and file uploads in due-date order, holding essays, discussions and uploads for your approval. It signs in as you, so a closed assignment or a used-up attempt limit stops it too. More: Silent Student on Canvas.
Questions people ask
Why can’t I see the Start Assignment button in Canvas?
Instructure gives two reasons: your instructor wants the work turned in another way, or the availability date has passed. In courses using Assignment Enhancements there is no Start Assignment step, and you pick a submission type on the assignment page.
Can I still submit a Canvas assignment after the due date?
Often, yes. Instructure says you can still submit late work before the Available until date, and it is marked late. Once an assignment shows Closed, it cannot accept submissions.
Why is the New Attempt button grayed out in Canvas?
You have used every attempt your instructor allowed. In Assignment Enhancements courses, the assignment’s availability dates can also stop new attempts.
Can I submit a Google Doc on Canvas?
Yes, if your school enabled Google Drive. Canvas accepts Google Docs, Sheets and Slides through the Google Drive tab, one file per submission. Otherwise download the file and upload it, or submit a shareable link as a Website URL where that is allowed.
How do I know my Canvas assignment was submitted?
Open Grades, click the assignment and look for the submission confirmation. In Assignment Enhancements courses, the Progress Tracker shows a Submitted status.
Can I delete a file I submitted on Canvas?
No. Instructure says that once a file is uploaded as a submission, you cannot delete it. If you can make a new attempt, your instructor can still see every earlier submission.
Sources
All fetched and checked October 29, 2026.
- How do I submit an online assignment? (Instructure, student guide)
- How do I upload a file as an assignment submission in Canvas? (Instructure, student guide)
- How do I upload a file from Google Drive as an assignment submission in Canvas? (Instructure, student guide)
- How do I submit an online assignment in a course using Assignment Enhancements? (Instructure, student guide)
- How do I submit a Google Drive file or URL as an assignment submission using Assignment Enhancements? (Instructure, student guide)
- How do I submit a Google Assignments LTI 1.3 file as an assignment submission in Canvas? (Instructure, student guide)
- How do I view Assignments as a student? (Instructure, student guide)
- How do I know when my assignment has been submitted? (Instructure, student guide)
- How do I know when my assignment has been submitted in a course using Assignment Enhancements? (Instructure, student guide)
- How do I create an online assignment? (Instructure, instructor guide)
- Can a student resubmit Canvas assignments? (Instructure, instructor guide)
- How do I view all my Canvas courses? (Instructure, student guide)
- Course Participation Access During and After Course Dates (Instructure)
How this guide was made. We read each Instructure guide listed above on October 29, 2026 and quote them directly. Instructure’s wording for the same step sometimes differs between guides, and we quote the version on the page we cite. We wrote the guide with AI assistance and checked each quote against its source, then re-checked every quote against the live pages on November 2, 2026.
Related guides: Can you unsubmit an assignment on Canvas? · How do you see missing assignments on Canvas? · What does Excused mean on Canvas? · What happens when a Canvas quiz time limit runs out? · How do What-If grades work in Canvas? · Why is my Canvas total grade hidden? · All guides · Canvas · Canvas grade calculator
Written by the company that makes Silent Student. Silent Student is not affiliated with or endorsed by Instructure. Canvas and Instructure are trademarks of Instructure, Inc.