---
title: "Secret Santa Generator with Exclusions | Sunlit Circle"
description: "Draw names for Secret Santa or any gift exchange: nobody gets themselves, couples stay apart, and each person gets a private link to their match."
url: https://sunlitcircle.cyou/
---

# Secret Santa generator

Add everyone in your circle, keep couples and households apart, then send each person a private link that shows only who they are buying for. No sign-up, no emails collected.

## Private links

Your draw appears here: one private link per person, ready to copy and send. Nobody's match is shown on this screen unless you ask for it.

## How to run your draw

1. Add everyone taking part. Give couples or families the same household name and they will never draw each other.
2. Add exclusions for anything else, such as last year's pairs. Untick "both ways" if only one direction matters.
3. Fill in the event name, budget, date and a note. They appear on everyone's page.
4. Press **Draw names** and send each person their own link. It shows only their match, after they tap Reveal.

## How the draw works

Each draw uses your browser's cryptographic random number generator. The tool shuffles the whole group and keeps the result only if nobody has themselves and every household and exclusion holds. Repeating until one fits makes every allowed arrangement equally likely. If the rules are very tight, it switches to a step-by-step search, and if no arrangement can exist, it names the people who are stuck, for example three housemates who could only give to one other person.

## How private are the links?

There is no server and no account. Each match is stored in the link itself, after the # sign, which browsers do not send to websites. It is scrambled so a name does not show up in a chat preview, but this is not encryption: anyone holding a link, the organiser included, could decode it. Your list and last draw stay in this browser so you can resend a lost link.

## More tools for your circle

Each tool has its own page and works offline once loaded.

- [White elephant randomizer](https://sunlitcircle.cyou/white-elephant/): A fair random turn order, house rules written out for you, and a steal counter.
- [Group birthday calendar](https://sunlitcircle.cyou/birthday-calendar/): Collect your group's birthdays, see who is next and download a yearly .ics calendar.
- [Group gift split calculator](https://sunlitcircle.cyou/group-gift-split/): Split a shared present equally, by shares or pay-what-you-can, exact to the cent.

## Recommended

Two free tools from elsewhere that come in handy when you organise presents online.

### Keep gift-season emails out of your inbox

Signing up to a wishlist site or a one-off shop account for this year's exchange? CleanTempMail gives you a temporary address with no sign-up. Its inbox deletes itself after three days, so the follow-up newsletters never reach you.

[Open a temporary inbox](https://cleantempmail.com/)

### Check the shop before the group pays

Found the perfect present on a site nobody has heard of? WebTraceCheck's free domain lookup shows when the shop's domain was registered, and its disposable cloud browser lets you open a doubtful link on a remote machine instead of yours.

[Look up a shop's domain](https://webtracecheck.com/dns-lookup)

## Questions

**Can the organiser take part too?**

Yes. Add yourself like anyone else and do not press Show all matches. The list of links shows names only, not who drew whom.

**What if someone loses their link?**

Come back on the same device: your last draw is kept, so you can copy their link again. Drawing again would change everyone's match.

**Why does it say my draw is impossible?**

Some combinations of households and exclusions leave someone with nobody to buy for. The message names the people involved, so you can remove one exclusion and try again.