Secret Santa generator

Draw names for a gift exchange and give each person only their own match: by private link, on one phone passed around, or on printed slips.

Privacy: runs in your browser

This tool processes your input in this browser. Inputs and results are excluded from analytics. Recent tools save tool names, visit counts and last-visit times. Favorites store only tool names. Draft saving is optional and stays on this device; delete saved text with the draft controls. Loading text from a URL is optional and contacts that server; its URL and your IP address are visible to the server. When a button sends your result to another tool, it waits in this tab until that tool opens it, for up to a minute, and is then deleted.

Copy link includes the inputs you choose to share in the address. Anyone with that link can reopen them. Files and generated results are excluded. Password and key tools share settings only.

English

Names, one per line

Keep apart (optional)

Nobody draws the person who drew them

Budget, date and a note for everyone

Budget

Date of the exchange

Note (optional)

Shown with each person's match, for example where you will meet or a gift theme.

Open a list from a file

List file (.txt or .csv)

A .txt file with one name per line, or a spreadsheet saved as .csv with the names in the first column. The file is read on this device and never uploaded.

Your draw

No names drawn yet. Choose Draw names when the list is ready.

Draw the names and send each person their match

Type everyone's names, one per line, and choose Draw names. Nobody draws themselves, and with three or more people nobody draws the person who drew them, so two people cannot simply guess each other. To keep couples or housemates apart, put them on one line under Keep apart: "Anna, Ben" means neither draws the other, "Anna > Ben" means only that Anna does not draw Ben, and three or more names on a line keep a whole household apart.

Each person gets a link that opens this page with their match hidden until they choose to see it, together with the budget, the date and your note; with a date, they can add the exchange to their calendar. The draw is kept in the part of the link after #, which browsers do not send to any server. The names in a link are scrambled so they do not show in a chat preview, but this is not encryption: send each person only their own link, and do not open the others yourself.

No phones at hand? Choose Pass this device around: each person in turn sees their match and hides it before passing it on. Print slips makes one slip per person with their match inside a fold. The organiser's link reopens the same draw later, so you can send someone a lost link again without drawing new names.

Worked example

Anna, Ben, Chloe, David, Emma and Finn, with "Anna, Ben" under Keep apart and a budget of $25: Anna might draw Emma and Emma draw Ben, but Anna never draws Ben, Ben never draws Anna, and nobody draws the person who drew them. Anna's link opens on "Anna, your Secret Santa match is ready" and shows Emma and the $25 budget only after she taps.

Next: Random team generator

Before you rely on the result

Two to 200 names, each different and up to 60 characters. Some rules leave no possible draw, such as one person kept apart from everyone else; the page names who is stuck. A link cannot tell whether someone has opened it, and anyone who has a link can see that person's match. Nothing is uploaded or stored.

Next: Random name picker

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ToolOctopus. “Secret Santa generator.” Updated 2026-10-21. https://tooloctopus.com/secret-santa-generator.

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