Draw Secret Santa names without collecting anyone's email. Paste the group, add "don't match" rules so partners and siblings never draw each other, and set a budget, exchange date, or note for everyone. One click produces a private reveal link per person; you paste each link into a chat or text, and the recipient presses Reveal to see who they are buying for. Your own assignment stays hidden from you on the results screen, so the organizer gets a surprise too.
Everything runs in your browser: the names and results are never uploaded, and each link carries its own answer, so there is nothing stored and nothing to expire. For a quick random winner instead of a full exchange, try the wheel spinner or the random number generator. Count down to the exchange with the countdown timer, or turn a link into a scannable card with the QR code generator.
Wondering why not just pull names from a hat? Read Secret Santa without a hat for the odds that someone draws their own name, when "don't match" rules make a draw impossible, and exactly what a reveal link contains.
Frequently asked questions
How do the private links work, and can the organizer peek?
Each link carries one result in the part of the address after the #. The name of the giver, the name of the person they drew, and any budget, date, or note are encoded into that fragment, so opening the link shows that result without contacting a server. The organizer generates every link, so they could open any of them and see who drew whom. The draw is private by courtesy, not cryptography. If the organizer wants a genuine surprise too, they should copy their own link without opening it and ask someone else to send the rest.
How do I stop couples or siblings from drawing each other?
Add an exclusion row and pick the two people. Every rule works both ways: if Alice cannot draw Bob, Bob also cannot draw Alice. Add as many rows as you need for couples, housemates, or last year's pairs. The generator searches for a draw that respects all of them and nobody ever draws themselves. If the rules make a complete draw impossible, for example three people where two are a couple, it tells you the draw is impossible instead of spinning forever and suggests removing a rule or adding a person.
What if someone loses their link?
The organizer still has every link on the results screen until the page is refreshed or closed, so the simplest fix is to resend that person their original link. Save the "Copy all messages" text somewhere, such as a note to yourself, right after drawing so you can resend later. If the links are gone, press Redraw: it produces a fresh set of assignments and new links for everyone, and the old links keep showing the old result, so make sure the whole group switches to the new ones.
Does it send emails or text messages?
No. There is no email step, no phone numbers, and no accounts. After the draw you get one short message per person containing their link, and you paste each one into a private chat, text, or email yourself. "Copy all messages" puts the whole batch on your clipboard separated by blank lines, so you can paste them into a notes app and send them one at a time. Everyone opens their link in a browser, presses Reveal when nobody is looking over their shoulder, and sees who they are buying for.
Is anything stored on a server?
Nothing. The names you type, the exclusions, and the results never leave your browser; the only things sent are our standard page-view analytics (with the #link part stripped off) and an event with the number of participants, never names. The draw runs locally using your browser's cryptographic random number generator, and each result lives only inside its own link. There is no database to leak and no expiry date, which also means there is no account to recover a lost link from. Anyone who has a link can open it as many times as they like, so treat each link as that person's private note and do not post the whole list in a shared channel.