Let $(\Omega , \mathfrak {M}, \mu )$
be a measure space. We show that if a surjective map $f: S_{L^1(\mu )} \to S_Y$
between the unit spheres of real $L^1(\mu )$
and of an arbitrary real normed space Y satisfies $$ \begin{align*} \min\{\|f(x)+f(y)\|, \|f(x)-f(y)\|\}=\min\{\|x+y\|, \|x-y\|\},\quad x,y\in S_{L^1(\mu)}, \end{align*} $$
then there exists a phase function $\varepsilon : S_{L^1(\mu )} \to \{-1, 1\}$
such that $\varepsilon \cdot f$
is a surjective isometry from $S_{L^1(\mu )}$
onto $S_Y$
, and furthermore, this isometry can be extended to a linear isometry on the whole space $L^1(\mu )$
.