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100% in your browser · No uploads🇪🇺 GDPR friendly⚡ Instant · No signup

Online Secret Santa generator

Skip the email-based services that demand everyone's address. Paste names, generate pairs locally, screenshot and share.

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Use case

When to use this

Office Secret Santa, family gift exchanges, friend-group swaps. The classic web tools need every participant to enter their email; this one runs offline so the host can do it in 10 seconds and DM the result.

How to use it

Step by step

  1. 1

    Paste names

  2. 2

    Generate pairs

  3. 3

    Screenshot or DM

Why no-email matters

Half your colleagues won't open the email or will mark it as spam. Doing the draw locally and sharing the assignments yourself takes one minute and 100% participation.

Privacy

Nothing is uploaded. The pairs exist only in your browser tab — close it and they're gone.

Why a generic generator works for this audience

There's a temptation to think a sport-specific or classroom-specific tool would be 'better' than a generic generator. In practice the opposite is true: the rules of fair team-splitting are the same whether you're dividing a Year 7 PE class or a Sunday-league football squad. What changes between audiences is the framing — the language used in the guide, the typical group size, the kinds of ratings people record. The underlying maths (Fisher–Yates shuffle, snake-draft balancing) is identical. That's why this site uses one generator across many audience-specific pages: the same engine, with copy and presets tuned to the context.

Save your roster between sessions

If you'll regenerate teams from the same roster repeatedly — every Tuesday training, every Friday game night — paste the names once, click 'Copy as text', and save the result in a note app or a pinned message. Next session, paste it back. There's no account system to maintain and nothing to forget; the names live wherever you keep your other notes. For coaches managing multiple squads, prefix each name with a one-letter squad tag (e.g. 'A Alex', 'B Sam') and use the filter step to keep only the relevant tag before generating.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Can the same pair recur from last year?

Possibly — the draw is random. Run it again if you want a different result.

Is it really anonymous?

Only if you, the host, don't peek. Generate, screenshot per person, and don't keep notes.

Is it appropriate to use this with under-18s?

Yes. The generator doesn't ask for personal information, doesn't display ads inside the tool itself, and runs entirely client-side. Many teachers use it weekly. See the trust and safety page for the full position on under-16 use.

Can I export the roster to a spreadsheet?

Yes — the 'Export CSV' button gives you a two-column file (team, name) that opens cleanly in Excel, Google Sheets, and Numbers. From there you can pivot, filter, or merge with attendance records.

What if someone arrives late?

Add their name to the textarea and regenerate. If you want to preserve the existing teams and just slot the latecomer in, use the 'Add to smallest team' shortcut instead of regenerating — it places them on whichever team currently has the fewest members.

Keep exploring

Related tools & guides

Ready to run your event?

Free forever for basic use. No signup required. The free version really does do the job.

Open team generator Open bracket maker

Want prettier prints? See the optional template pack