Secret Santa generator, private links, no sign-up.

A Secret Santa generator takes a list of names and gives every person one other person to buy a gift for, in secret. This one does the whole job in your browser: it draws the names so nobody gets themselves, keeps apart any pairs you choose, and makes one private link for each person. There is no account, no email address to collect, and no list kept on a server. You can also add a budget, a gift day and a hint for each person, and print slips if you would rather hand out paper.

How to use it

1. Type the people in Names, one on each line. You need at least 3. To see how it works first, press Use sample names.
2. Optional: add a bar and a hint after a name, such as Blair | likes tea and board games. The hint goes to whoever draws Blair.
3. Fill in Event name, Gift day, Budget and Note for everyone if you want them on the links and slips.
4. To keep two people apart, pick both names under Who should not draw each other and press Add rule, or type the rule yourself.
5. Press Draw names. Each person gets a row. Press Copy message to copy a ready message with their link, or Copy link for the link alone, and send it to that person only.
6. For paper, press Save slips as PDF. Choose A4 or US Letter first.

How the draw works

The tool shuffles the names with your browser's secure random numbers and checks the result against your rules. If a shuffle breaks a rule, it shuffles again. Every legal draw is equally likely, which is what you want from a fair draw. When the rules are tight and plain shuffling keeps failing, it falls back to a search that still finds a legal draw if one exists, and it tells you if none does.

By default nobody draws the person who draws them, so you never get two people giving to each other. Untick Nobody draws the person who draws them if swaps are fine. Most groups of four or more can be drawn without a swap, but a few rule sets make that impossible, and then the tool says a swap had to stay in.

How many different draws are there? For a group where nobody draws themselves, the count grows quickly:

The 3 person row shows a real limit. With three people and a couple kept apart, the third person cannot be given to by both of the couple, so no draw exists, and the tool tells you so. From four people up there is room. In the 6 person row, the 168 comes from taking the 265 draws and removing every one in which Alex draws Blair or Blair draws Alex.

How the privacy works, and what you can see

Each link looks like the page address followed by a # and a block of letters. That block holds one person's draw: the event, the budget, their name, the name of the person they drew and the hint. Browsers do not send the part after the # to a website when they open a link, so the server that delivers this page never receives a draw. Nothing is stored, and there is no database to leak.

Be clear about what that protects and what it does not.

• You, the organiser: by default the page does not list who drew whom. Leave Show who drew whom on this screen off if you want to play too. You still hold every link, and a link is encoded, not locked, so someone determined could decode them. If you join in, trust yourself not to peek.
• The person with a link: sees only their own draw, and only after they press Show me who I got. They can press Hide it again if someone walks in.
• Anyone who gets a link: can read it. Send each link in a private message, not in the group chat, and not by email to a shared inbox.
• The slips PDF: contains every name. Print it without reading it if you are playing, and do not leave the file around.

Budget, gift day and hints

The budget and gift day are free text, so write them the way your group does: Up to $25, 20 euro, Friday 19 Dec. They appear on every link and every slip. For gift ideas, either add a hint after each name yourself, or let people fill in the Secret Santa questionnaire and paste their lines into the list. Hints are cut at 300 characters so the links stay short enough for chat apps.

Common problems

• Two people share a name. Names must differ, so use Sam B and Sam K.
• "Nobody left to give to." Your rules have used up every choice for someone. Remove a rule that mentions that person.
• A link opens but says it looks broken. The message app cut it. Copy the link again and send it as plain text.
• You closed the page. Links you already sent keep working. If you draw again you get new pairs, so do not mix links from two draws.

For other group jobs, try the team generator to split people into groups, or the random name picker for a single winner.