Online Secret Santa group: how it works

With an online Secret Santa group, you draw names without having to meet. You create the group and send one link to everyone. Everyone signs up themselves, and after the draw each person sees through their personal link whom they give a gift to. Online Secret Santa groups are free.

Three links, three jobs

• –The admin link is yours. With it you edit the group, add people, run the draw and delete the group. Don't pass it on: anyone who has it can change and delete the group.
• –The group link goes to your group chat. With it, everyone signs up themselves until the draw.
• –Everyone gets their personal link once, when they sign up. After the draw, it shows them whom they give a gift to.

Sign up yourself or be added

Ideally, everyone signs up through the group link, with their name and, if they like, a wish. Then only they know their personal link.

If someone doesn't use the group link, you can add them yourself in the admin view. You then get their personal link to send on. You know that link too: if you open it, the person sees that on their draw.

With "Keep wishes secret", a wish is only visible to the person themselves and, after the draw, to whoever drew them. The admin view and the invitation page show no wishes.

Exclusions

An exclusion sets whom a person should not draw, for example their own partner. Everyone has to keep at least two people they could draw, otherwise exclusions could steer who draws whom. That is why exclusions only work once enough people have joined.

• –People who signed up themselves change their own exclusions through their personal link. You see them in the admin view but can't change them.
• –For people you added yourself, you edit the exclusions in the admin view.

If the exclusions would already decide whom someone draws, EventDrop doesn't run the draw and names the people affected. That can also come from the exclusions of others. Loosen a few exclusions and try again.

The draw

You run the draw in the admin view once at least three people have joined. After that, nobody can sign up anymore. As long as nobody has looked at their draw, you can draw again, for example if someone else joins.

Who draws whom is visible only to the person drawing, not even to you as the organizer. After the draw, the admin view shows only who has already looked at their draw. All draws in a group carry the same draw code.

Can’t find a link

• –Personal link gone: the organizer creates a new one in the admin view. The old link stops working. If this happens after the draw, the draw says so.
• –Admin link gone: if you were logged in when you created the group, you'll find it in your account under "My Secret Santa groups". Without an account, only the device you created the group on remembers the link.