Secret Santa without email

Most online Secret Santa sites ask the organizer for everyone's email address, then send each person their pick. That means collecting addresses, people creating accounts, and messages landing in spam folders. Some people never see theirs.

If your group is together in one place anyway, at a family dinner, a party or the office, you can skip all of that.

1. Open the free Secret Santa draw on one phone.
2. Type everyone who is taking part, one name per line. Three to thirty people.
3. Tap Shuffle. Everyone gets someone, and nobody gets themselves.
4. Pass the phone. Each person taps their name, checks that nobody is looking, confirms it is them, and opens their pick.
5. They tap "Got it, hide my pick" and hand the phone on. Once a pick is hidden, the draw will not show it again, so nobody can peek later.

A one-phone draw needs people in the room. If someone is away, you have two honest options:

• Someone they trust opens the absent person's pick, writes it on a card without reading it aloud, and seals it in an envelope for them. That person will know the pick, so choose someone who isn't nosy.
• The organizer opens it and texts it to them. Same trade: the organizer knows that one pick.

If most of the group is remote, a one-phone draw is the wrong tool; an email-based draw suits that better.

• Agree on a budget and a date before you shuffle, so nobody draws a name and then learns the rules.
• Use first names plus an initial when two people share a name. The draw asks for this so everyone can find their own.
• Keep the phone on the table between turns, screen down, so the next person can take it without anyone seeing.

The free draw works in any browser, on any phone. No email, no sign-ups, and the names stay in the tab.

• The free Secret Santa drawDraw names on one phone, in any browser.
• Keeping couples apartA fair way to redraw, by hand or with paper.
• Office Secret SantaBudget, date, opt-in, and a fair draw at work.
• Family Secret Santa with kidsOne draw at the table, kids included.