Secret Santa Generator
Type in the names, click draw, and send each person their own private link. The link reveals only who they are buying for — nobody else's match, not even yours. No accounts, no email addresses, and nothing is stored anywhere: this page has no server, the whole draw lives inside the links themselves.
Keep-apart rules (optional)
Partners and housemates usually shouldn't draw each other. Pick a giver and a person they must not draw, then add the rule. Add it both ways if neither should draw the other.
Your draw is done — here are the links
Send each person only their own link. Each link opens a reveal page that shows exactly one match: theirs. Links work until you close this tab — they are never uploaded, so copy them somewhere safe before you leave this page.
⚠ Organizer overview link — this is the master key. The link below contains the entire draw: every giver and every recipient. Keep it for your eyes only (you'll need it when someone inevitably loses their link). Do not paste it into the group chat.
One link per person
“Copy all” puts one line per person on your clipboard — Name: link — ready to paste into a group chat or split into individual messages. Want different matches? Just draw again; every draw makes a fresh set of links and quietly forgets the last one.
How it works
The short version: your browser shuffles the names until nobody has drawn themselves (a “derangement”, in maths terms) and every keep-apart rule is respected. Then it builds one link per person. The match is encoded inside the link itself — in the part after the #, which browsers never send over the network. There is no database behind this page and nothing to leak, because nothing is ever collected.
What a personal link contains: the event name, the name of the person the link belongs to, the name of the one person they are buying for, and the budget/date/note if you added them. That is all. It does not contain the rest of the draw — you cannot edit a personal link to peek at anyone else's match, because the other matches were never in it.
What if the rules make a draw impossible? With tight rules — say two people who have excluded everyone else — no valid pairing exists. The generator will tell you exactly that, and name the person who has been boxed in, instead of silently breaking a rule or handing someone their own name. Loosen a rule and draw again.
The honest trade-off: because nothing is stored, a lost link cannot be recovered by us — there is no “us” holding it. That's why the organizer overview link exists: save it somewhere private and you can re-send anyone their link at any time.
First time organizing? Read the step-by-step organizer's guide and the classic rules — including what to do when someone drops out mid-December.
FAQ
- Do participants need an account or an email address?
- No. You send each person a link however you like — group chat, text message, a note on the fridge. The link is the whole system.
- Can someone figure out the full draw from their link?
- No. A personal link physically contains only that person's own match. The only link with the full draw is the organizer overview link, which is why it comes with the big warning.
- How many people can take part?
- Between 2 and 50. (With 2 people the draw is not much of a mystery — you each buy for the other — but the tool will happily run it.)
- What happens if someone loses their link?
- Open your organizer overview link, find their name, and re-send their personal link from the list it shows you — or redraw from scratch if you've lost the overview link too.
- Is the draw really random?
- Yes — the browser shuffles and checks every rule, with a systematic search as back-up for heavily restricted groups. If a valid draw exists, it finds one; if none exists, it says so.
- Does this work for a White Elephant / Yankee Swap instead?
- Not directly — those games pick gifts in turn order rather than secret one-to-one matches. See how the two formats differ to pick the right one for your group.