How to run a Secret Santa draw online
Type everyone’s name in the Participants box, one per line, and press Draw names. That’s it — no account, no email addresses, no phone numbers. Group name, budget, exchange date and a message to everyone are optional; whatever you fill in appears on each person’s private page.
After the draw, the organizer screen does not show who got whom. Instead you get one private link per participant. Send each link to its owner by text, WhatsApp, KakaoTalk, Slack or email; when they open it, they see only the person they’re buying for. Because the organizer never sees the pairings, the organizer can play too.
- Send links: on a phone, Share opens your share sheet (Messages, WhatsApp and so on). On a computer, Copy link and paste it into a chat. Sent links get a “Sent” badge, so you can see who is still waiting.
- Pass the phone: everyone in one room? Hand one phone around; each person taps their name, confirms, sees their match and hides it again.
- Print slips: for classrooms and offices that prefer paper. Six fold-to-hide slips print per page.
Exclusions: couples, families and last year’s match
Partners and family members usually shouldn’t draw each other. Open Exclusions, pick two people and add a Both ways rule — they will never be matched. A One way rule only stops the left person from drawing the right person, which is ideal for avoiding the person you had last year.
Turn on No mutual pairs to prevent two people from drawing each other (A buys for B while B buys for A). Swapped pairs make the reveal less fun and are easier to guess.
If you add so many exclusions that no valid draw exists — for example, in a group of four, one person is blocked from all three others — the tool won’t draw. It tells you who is causing the problem so you can remove a rule.
How the draw stays fair
A Secret Santa draw where nobody gets themselves and everyone receives exactly one gift is what mathematicians call a derangement. This generator seeds its random number generator from your browser’s cryptographic source (crypto.getRandomValues), shuffles everyone uniformly, and reshuffles until every rule is satisfied. As a result, every valid assignment is equally likely, and the order you type names in has no effect.
Before drawing, it checks with a bipartite-matching algorithm whether any valid assignment exists at all. Only when the rules are so tight that random shuffles rarely succeed does it switch to a randomized backtracking search to find one.
How private are the links?
Nothing is stored on a server. The draw and the links are created entirely in your browser. Each pairing is encrypted with AES-GCM using a random key generated for that link alone, and both the encrypted data and its key live in the part of the link after the #. Browsers never send that part to the web server, so we can’t see your results.
To be completely honest: anyone who has a link can see that one pairing, because the link is the key. Don’t post all the links in a group chat; send each one privately. The organizer could technically open any link, so if you’re organizing and playing, agree to open only your own — or use Pass the phone or printed slips.
Encryption still helps: names don’t appear in plain text in the address, and if anyone edits a link by even one character, it simply won’t open, so results can’t be quietly altered.
Tips for a smoother gift exchange
- Set a budget and put it in the budget field. It appears on every private page, so gifts end up roughly equal and nobody feels awkward.
- Collect wish lists before you draw. A short hint (“loves tea”, “no candles”, “size M”) is shown only to that person’s Secret Santa.
- Remote teams: links work across offices and time zones. Ask people to include a gift-card preference or a shipping note in their wish list.
- Office parties and classrooms: print the slips in advance. Up to 300 names can be drawn at once.
- Keep the link: the organizer’s device remembers the draw, so you can resend a lost link later from the same browser.
FAQ
Can the organizer take part too?
Yes. Pairings are never shown on the organizer screen; each person (including you) checks their match through their own link. “Reveal all pairings” only opens after a warning, so you won’t see them by accident.
Do participants need an email address or an account?
No. You only enter names. The result for each person is encrypted inside their link, so there are no accounts and nothing is stored on a server. Your list and draw stay in this browser on your device.
Someone lost their link. What now?
Open this page again on the same device and browser you used to draw. The result and links are still there — copy that person’s link and send it again. If you cleared your browser data, draw again and send everyone new links.
What if someone joins or drops out after the draw?
Changing even one person can change the whole assignment, so draw again. A notice appears when your list differs from the saved draw. Every link shows a draw number (#), so people can confirm they have the newest one.
Can I do Secret Santa with only two people?
With two people each would simply get the other, so the minimum is three. With three people and No mutual pairs on, you get a single loop such as A→B→C→A.
Is it safe to post all the links in a group chat?
No — anyone with a link can open it, so they could see other people’s matches. Use Share to send each link privately to its owner.
Is the draw truly random?
Each draw starts from a new cryptographically random seed, and every assignment that satisfies your rules is equally likely. Drawing again gives a different result.