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
$L^1(\mu )$.