Sealed DrawGuide · Repairs
Someone Dropped Out of the Secret Santa: How to Repair a Draw
Someone leaves the week before the party, someone's new partner turns up, or someone deletes the message their link was in. Usually none of that means starting again. Each repair below is counted the same way: how many giver-to-receiver facts it hands to somebody who did not have them.
The four repairs differ in how much they disclose, so that is what this page counts.
Repairs are priced in edges
A draw is a set of facts of the form Ana gives to Ben. Call one an edge: a twelve-person draw has twelve, and is one of 176,214,841 possible draws. Judge a repair by one question: how many edges does somebody learn that they did not have, and who learns them?
| Situation | Repair | Edges disclosed |
|---|---|---|
| Drop-out, draw tab still open | The page re-seals one link | 1 dead, to the organizer only |
| Drop-out, tab closed | The leaver announces their own recipient | 1 dead, 0 live |
| Late joiner | One volunteer breaks their edge | 1 live, by consent |
| Anything at all | Redraw | None, plus one announcement |
Two of these repairs, the announcement and the volunteer swap, depend on the group. They work because everyone knows each other and reads the same thread. Nothing stops somebody posting a false announcement, and the protection is that it lands where the person it names can object. If that does not describe your group, redraw, which relies on nobody's word.
While the draw tab is still open, the page can repair a drop-out
The generator keeps the draw in the tab's memory until you close the tab. It never saves the pairings or sends them anywhere, and the send list never shows them. Holding the draw is what lets the page repair a drop-out with one new link.
To use it, press the button with the leaver's name in the "Someone dropped out" box under the send list. Whoever drew the leaver takes the leaver's recipient and gets one fresh sealed link, marked unsent so you can spot it; every other link stays as it was. That costs one message to one person, and no participant learns anything. You do learn one edge: you can see which row changed, so you know who was giving to the person who left. That gift will no longer happen, so the edge is a dead one. If the leaver and the person who drew them drew each other, or if the new pairing would break one of your rules, one new link cannot fix it, and the page suggests a redraw.
The page has no repair of its own for a late joiner. For that, or for a drop-out you would rather not see, correct the names still in the form and seal again. That is a redraw: everybody needs a new message, and nobody learns anything, you included. The in-page repair ends when you close or reload the tab, because there is no server holding your draw and nothing to log back into.
Someone drops out after the tab is gone
Removing one person breaks a draw in two places. The leaver was giving to somebody (call her Jo), and somebody was giving to the leaver. Now Jo has no gift coming, and whoever drew the leaver has one with nowhere to put it.
The repair costs one announcement, made by the person who is leaving anyway. They post to the group: I'm out. I had Jo, so whoever drew me, Jo is yours now.
Whoever drew the leaver reads it, says nothing, and gives to Jo instead. Jo, the leaver and the rest of the group never learn who they are. The group learns one edge, and it is a dead one, because that gift will no longer happen. No live edge is disclosed. Post the announcement where the whole group reads it. Sending it only to the organizer would not reach the right person, because nobody knows who drew the leaver.
The announcement does tell everybody that Jo's giver is not the leaver. At twenty people that is worth nothing. In a small group it is worth more, and small draws give pairings away anyway: four people have only nine possible draws, and below five anyone who opens their own link can work out most of the rest, as the generator warns on screen. Below about six, redraw.
Someone joins after the draw
A late joiner breaks nothing, which is why it feels easier than it is. The draw is complete, so there is no room in it, and making room means breaking an edge that already exists.
The cheap version costs one person one fact, and that person volunteers for it. Ask in the group: we have somebody new, who is happy to swap? One volunteer answers, tells the new arrival privately who they had, and gives to the new arrival instead.
The books balance: the volunteer's old recipient still gets one gift, the new arrival gives and receives, and every other sealed link stays correct. The price is one live edge (the new arrival now gives to the volunteer's old recipient), and the volunteer is the one who learns it. The new arrival, in turn, works out what the volunteer had. Two people know one thing about each other, and the group knows which two.
That is why a volunteer does it in front of the group, instead of the organizer reassigning someone privately. Somebody has to hold the extra fact, and naming that person keeps the cost out in the open. If nobody volunteers, redraw.
The redraw, and what the draw ID is for
Redrawing is always available, and it is the right answer whenever the other repairs do not fit: a group under about six people, two people gone at once, or no volunteer. It costs one announcement and one new message per person, and nobody learns a fact.
The draw ID keeps it clear. It is four random bytes shown as eight hex characters, printed on the organizer's screen and on every reveal page. Any link showing 9C4A2F71 is dead, use the one sent today tells everyone which link to throw away. Ignore the earlier link leaves people guessing once both messages sit in the same thread.
The ID tells a participant that two links came from the same run. It cannot show that the draw was fair or valid, or that nobody looked, and anyone who can make a link can also put the ID on one: in a Quick draw the key travels inside the link, so making one costs nothing.
Lost links, and the copy you were made to take
"I can't find my link" is more common than a drop-out and has a shorter answer: send the same link again. Their row in the send list has a Copy link button for as long as the draw tab is open. Nothing can revoke a link, because no server holds it, so the copy they lost still opens too.
If the tab is gone, you still have the copy the tool made you take before it showed the send list: the copied block, the text file or the printout. Every sealed link sits beside the name it belongs to, so resending one is a single paste. Paste it only into the thread the original went to, never into a new conversation or a reply to a forwarded request. A Quick link opens for whoever holds it, and "I lost mine, can you resend?" is the cheapest way for someone to ask you for somebody else's.
A lost keep link in a Locked draw is different. The organizer never had it, so nobody can resend it; that person makes a fresh code, and you seal the draw again, which gives everyone new links.
If the copy and the tab are both gone, redraw. Nothing else can recover the links, because that would take a server of ours holding your draw. Tell participants not to screenshot the reveal page as a backup: that writes a recipient's name into a camera roll and usually a cloud photo library. The reveal page has a "Keep this link" button that copies the link itself instead.