How to draw Secret Santa names without collecting anyone's email
Enter everyone's names, press draw, and you get one private link per person to send however you already talk to them. Nobody signs up and nobody hands over an email address.
Every other free organiser works by email. You type in fourteen addresses, the site mails everyone a link, and in exchange it now has fourteen verified addresses of people who did not choose to give them to it. That is the actual product. This one has no server to send mail from, so the links come back to you and you send them yourself in the group chat that already exists.
How the private links work
Each person's link contains only their own name and the name of the person they are buying for. Not the rest of the draw.
The assignment travels in the part of the address after the #, which browsers never send to a server. It does not reach our logs, it is not in the page request, and there is nothing at our end to look it up in. If someone forwards their link to a nosy colleague, all that colleague learns is who that one person is buying for.
Two honest limits. This is an encoding, not encryption, and it does not pretend otherwise: it keeps participants from seeing each other's assignments, not a determined person from unpicking their own link. And you can see every link, because you generated them. Any tool that claims otherwise while running without a server is not telling you the truth. Send them and close the page.
Why nobody ends up drawing each other
Because the draw is built as one loop through the whole group rather than a shuffle.
Shuffling names and pairing them off gives a valid draw, and roughly half the time it also gives you mutual pairs: Amy draws Ben and Ben draws Amy. They open their links, work it out in about four seconds, and for a group of four that can flatten the whole thing. Most free generators do exactly this.
This one threads a single chain through everyone instead. Amy buys for Ben, Ben buys for Cara, Cara buys back round to Amy. One loop, everybody included once. That makes it impossible for two people to be given each other, and impossible for anyone to draw themselves, for any group of three or more.
With exactly two people the only draw that exists is each other, so the tool says so on the result rather than presenting it as a secret.
Keeping couples apart
Add a pair under "keep these apart" and they will never be given each other, in either direction.
This is the request that comes up every year: two people who live together and are already buying each other something, and who would rather be matched with anyone else. If the exclusions cannot all be honoured, because there are too many of them for the number of people, the tool tells you which and stops. It does not quietly drop one to force a result, which is the version that causes an argument in December.
What to set before you draw
- A budget. Probably the most useful line on the page. It appears on everyone's reveal, so nobody has to ask the group and nobody turns up having spent four times what everyone else did.
- The exchange date. Also on every reveal, which saves the "when is it again" message.
- A note. Where to bring it, whether joke presents count, anything the group needs to know once.
- Your name. So the reveal says who ran the draw and does not look like spam when it lands in a chat.
If somebody loses their link
Send them theirs again from the list, if you still have the page open. If you do not, run the draw again and send the whole set out fresh.
There is no account and no database, which is the trade: nothing to breach and nothing to unsubscribe from, but also nothing for us to recover on your behalf. Redrawing produces a completely different set of pairings, so if you redraw you have to reissue every link, not just the missing one.
No list of who was at your Christmas do
The names, the draw and the links are all produced on your device.
No list of who was at your work Christmas do reaches a server, because there is no server to reach. No email addresses are collected from you or from anybody you send a link to. There is no watermark, no cap on how many people you can include, and no upgrade waiting behind a thirteenth participant.
Common questions
How does this draw Secret Santa names without collecting email addresses?
You enter everyone's names and press draw, and it produces one private link per person for you to send however your group already talks. There is no server sending mail, so nobody has to hand over an email address to take part.
What does each private link actually show?
Only that one person's own name and the name of the person they are buying for, not the rest of the draw. The assignment travels in the part of the web address after the #, which browsers never send to a server, so it never reaches any logs.
Can the person who ran the draw see everyone's assignments?
Yes. The organiser generated every link, so they can see all of them. This is an encoding that stops participants seeing each other's assignments, not encryption that hides the draw from the person running it.
Why does this avoid two people drawing each other?
Because it threads one chain through the whole group rather than shuffling and pairing names. A shuffle gives mutual pairs, such as Amy drawing Ben and Ben drawing Amy, roughly half the time, which most free generators allow. Chaining everyone in one loop makes that and drawing yourself impossible for any group of three or more.
Can I stop two specific people being matched?
Yes, add them under "keep these apart" and they will never be assigned to each other. If there are too many exclusions for the size of the group to satisfy them all, the tool tells you rather than silently dropping one.
What happens if someone loses their link?
Send it to them again from the list if the page is still open. If it is not, run the draw again and reissue every link, because a fresh draw produces completely different pairings, not just a replacement for the one missing link.
Is there a limit on how many people I can include, or a cost?
No. It is free with no account, no watermark and no cap on participants. Because there is no database, there is also nothing for the organiser to recover later, so links are worth keeping until the exchange happens.