A Secret Santa generator that keeps the secret.

What the generator does

A Secret Santa draw has one job: give every person exactly one person to buy for, without anyone drawing themselves and without anyone learning the rest of the list. Paper slips in a hat do that well when everyone is in the same room. They do it badly when half the group is remote, when someone draws their own name, or when a couple ends up buying for each other.

This generator does the draw for you and hands each person their result separately:

• Everyone gives once and receives once. No one is left out and no one gets two gifts.
• No one draws themselves. That is checked on every draw, not left to luck.
• Exclusions work both ways. If you say Sam can't draw Alex, Alex won't draw Sam either. Use it for couples, housemates, or last year's pair.
• One private link per person. Each link holds a single match. Nobody gets a list.

How to run a draw in about a minute

1. Name the occasion. "Office party", "Cousins 2026", whatever the group calls it. Pick a budget ($10 to $100) and, if you know it, the exchange date.
2. Add at least three people. For each one you can add a few things they love, such as "coffee, hiking, true crime". Those interests shape the gift ideas their Santa sees later.
3. Set exclusions if you need them. Each person can have one person they can't draw. If the rules make a draw impossible, the generator tells you instead of producing a bad result.
4. Press draw. You get one link per person, with buttons to share it from your phone or copy it.
5. Send each link to its owner, one at a time. A direct message, a text or an email all work. Don't paste the whole list into the group chat.

That's it. There's no account to create and no email list to fill in.

What people see when they open their link

The link opens a wrapped gift. Your person pulls the ribbon (or taps a button if they prefer less motion), and the tag comes into focus: You're gifting Maya. Below it they see the budget, the date, and whatever interests you entered for Maya.

From there they can open gift ideas. The ideas come from a curated library of gifts grouped by interest and filtered by your budget. Each idea has a short reason and an estimated price range, and there's a short poem they can copy onto the card. If none of the first four ideas fit, "More ideas" shows another set.

Want to see it before you set anything up? Try the unwrap with a sample match.

How private is it, honestly?

Each link contains one match and nothing else, so a person who opens their own link learns only their own match. That's the point of the tool.

The site doesn't ask for email addresses or accounts, and it doesn't keep a copy of your group's list.

When a generator beats a hat

• Remote or mixed groups. People who aren't in the room get their match at the same time as everyone else. See the virtual Secret Santa guide.
• Families with couples. Exclusions stop partners from drawing each other, which a hat can't do. The family guide covers mixed ages too.
• Offices. A shared budget and a clear date remove most of the awkwardness. See Secret Santa for coworkers.
• Redraws. If someone drops out before links go out, just draw again. Once links are out, a redraw means sending everyone a new link.

Questions people ask