How to Do Secret Santa Online: A Remote Exchange Guide
To do Secret Santa virtually, agree a budget and delivery plan, draw names online, send everyone a private link, then open gifts on a video call. No email or account needed for the draw.
| Step | What to arrange | What people receive |
|---|---|---|
| Invite | Confirm participants, gift type and budget including the postage rule. | An invitation you send yourself |
| Set dates | Agree a send-by deadline and a reveal time with time zones. | The schedule and call link |
| Add names | Type or paste the list, then review it. | Nothing is sent automatically |
| Set rules | Optional: couples, housemates, last year's pairs. | Nothing yet |
| Draw | Add wishes and details, then draw one recipient per person. | One result link for each participant |
| Send links | Send each person only their own link in a private message. | Their match, budget, date and note |
| Send gifts | Share each address privately with the gift buyer; check delivery. | A wrapped parcel or an agreed digital gift |
| Open together | Take turns on the call; reveal givers only if the group wants to. | The gift and, optionally, the giver's name |
Use the Secret Santa generator for the name draw and this guide for the activity around it. The rules of the game are the same remotely: each person buys one gift for the name they draw. Start with the remote activity plan, or jump to the draw walkthrough with screenshots.
Any group from 3 people up works, odd or even, with up to 200 in one draw; there is a page on odd numbers and groups of three. With only three people, everyone can work out who drew them. Links go out by WhatsApp, text or email, and for sending on WhatsApp to one person after another there is a page that marks who is done.
How Do You Do Secret Santa Virtually?
Run the draw online, mail or deliver the gifts separately, and meet on a video call to open them. A call is optional: people who cannot join can open theirs later and send a thank-you privately. The generator handles the matches; you arrange invitations, delivery and the meeting.
Confirm Who Wants to Take Part
Send an invitation for a remote exchange in the chat or email your group already uses. Include the reply deadline, proposed gift budget, whether postage is included, and whether gifts will be physical or digital. Collect only people who opt in; a sign-up sheet helps check the final names.
Agree a gift budget everyone can manage. If participants live in different countries, check delivery costs, currency and any customs costs before drawing. Decide who covers those costs. A digital gift or buying from a store near the recipient can be an alternative, if the group agrees.
Set a Send-By Date and a Reveal Time
Keep three dates separate: the day you draw, the deadline to send gifts, and the day you open them. Choose the send-by deadline after checking the carrier or retailer's current estimate for the actual destination, leaving a buffer for delays. The date on a Secret Santa card is the exchange date, not a delivery guarantee.
Pick a video-call time the group can attend. Write the date, time and time zone in the invitation, then ask people in other zones to confirm their local time. Send the meeting link separately. In the generator's shared note, you might write: “Send gifts by our agreed deadline. Keep them wrapped for the call; see the group chat for your local time.”
Draw Names and Share Wishes Privately
Paste the confirmed names, review them, and set any couple or household exclusions. Collect a few gift preferences with the Secret Santa questionnaire. Before drawing, enter a short summary under Gift wishes for each person; the recipient's gift buyer sees it on their private card.
Send each participant only the result link beside their own name, and ask them to confirm they can open it. Copy and paste the link into a private chat if a send button does not open their usual app. Keep the organizer's links off screen shares and out of the group chat. The organizer holds all the links and can open them, so this is not a draw that hides matches from the organizer.
How Do You Handle Addresses and Gift Delivery?
For physical gifts, ask each recipient's permission to pass their mailing address to their gift buyer. Collect it in a private message and share it only with that buyer. Keep home addresses out of public sign-up sheets, group chats, gift wishes and the shared card note. The generator does not collect or route mailing addresses.
Use the recipient's name on the delivery label and wrap the gift, or request gift wrapping, so it can wait unopened. Follow the carrier's labeling requirements: a return address, receipt or retailer message may reveal the giver. Agree whether that matters instead of promising complete anonymity. Digital-gift providers may need delivery details or an account of their own; those are separate from this no-email name draw.
Before the reveal, ask everyone privately whether their gift has arrived. Buyers can share tracking with the organizer when needed; do not post addresses or tracking screenshots in the group chat. Check that the recipient received the parcel, rather than relying only on a dispatch notice.
What Happens on the Video Call?
- Check that everyone who wants to join can hear the call. Keep unopened gifts nearby.
- Take turns opening one gift each, following a name order agreed by the host.
- Let the recipient show the gift and thank their Santa. They can guess the giver if your group enjoys it.
- Reveal the giver after that turn, or keep the names secret, according to the group's agreed rule.
Show the gifts rather than the organizer's draw page. Ask before recording or sharing pictures. Someone who misses the call can open later and send a thank-you; everyone need not be online at once.
What If a Gift Is Late or Someone Drops Out?
A late parcel does not need a new draw. Tell the organizer privately, update the recipient, and let them join the call and open the gift when it arrives. If a parcel is missing, the buyer should contact the retailer or carrier and agree the next step with the organizer.
If someone drops out before gifts are bought, update the list and draw again with new links for everyone. If buying has started, check privately with the affected givers before changing matches. A redraw changes everyone's assignment; it is not an automatic repair of one missing participant.
How Does a Secret Santa Generator Work?
It does what a hat full of paper slips does, without the slips. Everyone gives one gift and receives one, nobody draws their own name, and nobody draws someone you've asked it to keep apart. Out of all the draws that follow those rules, it picks one at random.
Each person's match travels inside a link of their own. The organizer view lists links rather than pairs, but the organizer can open any of those links. All of this happens in your browser; the privacy page sets out what stays on your device.
Step 1 on the page: People
Add Names
Type a name under Add a person and press Enter, then the next. You can type several at once with commas between them: Maria Santos, Tom Becker, Aisha Khan.
Paste into Paste Name List for automatic review. For typed lists, press Check these names.
- From a spreadsheet, each row becomes one person, first and last name columns are joined, and email addresses are left out.
- From a group chat, copy a participant list or replies with sender names and times. Recognized replies keep each sender once and leave messages out. Review the detected names before importing.
- From an email, copy the To line: the names are kept and the addresses left out.
Step 1, continued
Check the List
Review opens before anyone is added. Check each name and what the page left out.
- Fix a name by typing in its row, or remove it with the ×.
- A name that appears twice is flagged and added once. If they really are two people, add a surname or an initial.
- Anything that wasn't read as a name, such as a header row, waits under Left out, with a button to add it after all.
When the list looks right, press Add these 8 people, or however many you have.
Step 2 on the page: Couples & exclusion rules
Keep People Apart
After import, check the success count and any exclusions here. Then choose Continue to draw or Add budget & date. Restrictions are optional.
A couple typed on one line with a plus sign in step 1, Maria Santos + Tom Becker, is kept apart automatically. For anyone else, choose a person, then who they shouldn't give to, and press Add rule. Both ways, so neither draws the other is ticked to start with, which suits couples and housemates; untick it for a one-way rule, such as last year's pairs. For households, and for rules that make a draw impossible, see keeping couples apart.
Each rule is listed in plain words, with Remove next to it. For several known previous pairs, open Import last year's pairs, paste the giver and recipient columns, review, then import. These are one-way rules; rows involving people outside the current list are left out. If your rules make a draw impossible, the page says who is stuck and creates no links.
Step 3 on the page: Details
Budget, Date and Note
Before drawing, you can also open Gift wishes for each person, choose a name, and enter a short wish list. It is saved on the organizer's device and appears only on that person's gift buyer's private card. Wishes on an already-sent link do not update: changing them after drawing requires a new draw and new links.
What you put here is printed on every card, under the match. All of it is optional.
- Budget: a short amount, such as $30.
- Exchange date: written out in full on the card, with the day of the week.
- Note to everyone: up to 200 characters, for the place and time, a theme, or “wrapped, please”.
- This group includes children under 13: tick it for a family or class draw. Their cards will never show ads or shopping links.
Step 4 on the page: Draw and send
Draw
Press Draw names. Instead of a list of pairs, you get the links for draw 1: one link per person, labelled with their name. Who drew whom isn't shown anywhere on the page.
Don't show the page to anyone, not even in a screenshot or a screen share: a photo of a link is enough to open it. The short code next to the draw number is printed on every card from that draw, so if you ever draw again, everyone can tell the two apart.
Step 4, continued
Send Each Link Privately
One private message per person. Next to each name are WhatsApp, Text and Email: each opens that app with a short greeting and the link already written, and you choose the one person to send it to.
| Sending by | What to do |
|---|---|
| Press WhatsApp, pick that person's chat and send. | |
| Text message | Press Text, add that one person and send. |
| Press Email and send it to that person alone, with nobody in Cc. | |
| Slack or Teams | Press Copy link and paste it into a direct message, not a channel. |
Don't post all the links in the group chat: anyone there could open anyone's link, and one curious tap spoils it. The group chat is still the place for the budget, the date, and a heads-up that links are coming. If people live far apart, the draw works the same way; the giver will need a postal address, which you can pass on privately.
Once everyone has their link, press Remove links from this device. Until you do, the links stay in this browser, so anyone using it could open them.
On each person's phone
What Does Each Person See?
A gift tag with only their own name on it, “This link is for Tom Becker”, and a button, I am Tom Becker, show me. Their match isn't on the page yet, not even hidden, so a link that reaches the wrong person shows a name they already know and the line “Not you? Close this page.”
When they press the button, the tag turns over: “You're giving a gift to Aisha Khan”, with the budget, date and note underneath. It opens in any web browser, with no app and no account. Print this card prints just the tag, and Hide the name turns it back over.
Behind the page
Are the Names Sent to a Server?
No. The draw happens in your browser, and the names, pairs, budget, date and note are never sent to our server. Each person's card travels inside their own link, after the # sign, a part of a link that browsers don't send to websites.
Two things to know. The app you send a link with can see it, as it sees any message you send. And the card inside a link is scrambled, not locked with a password, so anyone with the whole link can open it. That's why each link goes to one person only.
Can the Organizer Take Part in Secret Santa?
Yes. The draw page shows links, not pairs, so you learn your match the same way everyone else does: by opening your own link. Copy your own link into a new tab, or send it to yourself like the others, and don't open anyone else's.
What If a Secret Santa Link Is Lost or Doesn't Work?
If you haven't removed the links from your device, open the draw page and send that person their link again. If you have, press Draw again and send everyone a new link: the page keeps no copy anywhere else, so there is nothing to look up.
Opened by someone else
What If Someone Opens the Wrong Link?
Nothing is given away unless they press the button. The link first shows only whose it is, with I am Tom Becker, show me and “Not you? Close this page.” If someone did press it and saw another person's match, draw again and send everyone their new link.
Cut short
What If a Link Says It Doesn't Work?
Part of it was lost on the way, which happens when only some of a long link gets copied. Ask the organizer to send it again, and open the whole link. A cut-off link never shows the wrong name: it is refused.
After the draw
What If Someone Drops Out After the Draw?
Remove them with the × next to their name in step 1, or add a newcomer the same way. As soon as the list changes, the links from the last draw are hidden and marked out of date.
Press Draw again. The page asks first, because a new draw is a new random match for everyone, not the old matches with one change; some people may get the same person as before. Then send everyone their new link, and say that it replaces the old one.
On any phone or computer that has opened a new link, the old one now says “This link is out of date” and shows no name. A phone that has never opened a new link can't know there is one, because no account or server keeps track, so your message matters.
Only changing the budget, date or note marks the links out of date too. If you've already sent them, change the detail back so they count again, and tell everyone the new detail yourself.
Ready? Draw names for your Secret Santa.