A group gift for one person and a holiday exchange where everybody gives to everybody are two different jobs. Gift Buddy handles both in the Events tab: a regular event for a birthday or a wedding, and a Secret Santa for an anonymous exchange. This guide walks through creating each one, inviting people, using the group chat, and the limits worth knowing before you start.
What you can create in the Events tab
Open the Events tab and tap +. A sheet offers three options:
- Secret Santa: draw names and exchange gifts anonymously.
- Custom event: a birthday, a wedding or any other occasion.
- Join with a code: for when someone has sent you an invite link or code.
Whoever creates an event is its organizer. Events you have been invited to appear under Invitations in the same tab.
How to create an event for a birthday, wedding or anything else
Start by picking the kind of event. There are three, and each one decides who the event is for:
- Birthday: one celebrant.
- Wedding: the couple, one or two people.
- Custom: up to two people, or nobody at all, which suits a New Year party with friends.
Then add a name (up to 60 characters), choose an icon and set the date, which has to fall within the next year. Members get reminders 7 days before, the day before and on the day, so nobody has to keep it in their head. The description is optional, but it is the right place for where you are meeting, what time, and what to bring.
Surprise or open
This is the one decision you cannot undo. In Surprise mode, the celebrant does not see the event, its chat or an invite. That is the usual choice for a birthday: everyone plans behind the person's back, and they find out on the day.
In Open mode, the celebrant is invited like everyone else. That works for a wedding where the couple wants to see who is coming, or for an event with no celebrant at all.
The celebrants and surprise mode are set once. The organizer can change the name, date and description at any time while the event is open.
How to invite people
There are two ways in, and you can use both.
- From the people you follow. Pick friends and they get an invite in the app.
- With a link or a code. Copy the link into any messenger. Anyone who opens it on a phone with Gift Buddy sees the invite with a Join button. The code is handy to read out loud or paste into Join with a code.
If a link ends up in the wrong chat, tap Create a new link and the old one stops working at once. If the event is meant for a closed circle, switch off Public link. A closed event is invite-only: the link and the code stop working, and people can only be added from inside the app.
One event holds up to 50 members.
What is inside an event
The event page is the shared space for the whole group, and it holds three things.
Members. Who has joined and who has not answered yet.
The celebrant's wishes. Gifts from the wishlist of the person the event is for. Any member can claim a gift, and everyone else sees it is taken, so two people do not show up with the same coffee machine. We explain the mechanics in how claiming prevents duplicate gifts.
A group chat. Everyone who has joined is in it. This is where you decide who buys what, when you meet, and whether you chip in on something big. A few rules:
- you can delete your own messages, and the organizer can delete any message;
- any message can be reported;
- you can mute chat notifications without leaving the event;
- messages from people you have blocked stay hidden;
- a chat holds up to 1,000 messages.
If several people are buying one gift together rather than just coordinating, read how to run a group gift without arguing about money.
A friend's birthday in five steps
This is how a birthday usually runs when friends want to give without duplicates and without spoiling the surprise:
- Two or three weeks ahead, create a Birthday event, pick the celebrant and turn on Surprise.
- Invite friends from the people you follow, or drop the link into the group's usual chat.
- Everyone opens the celebrant's wishes and claims what they are taking on.
- In the group chat, agree on any bigger joint gift, the place and the time.
- The reminders a week and a day before catch whoever leaves things to the last minute.
The celebrant sees neither the event nor the chat the whole time.
Managing an event: edit, cancel, delete
The organizer can edit the name, date and description at any time. They can also remove a member: long-press the person in the list. A removed member can only come back with a new invite. Any member can leave on their own.
When plans fall through, there are two options, and they are not the same:
- Cancel the event. Everyone is notified, the event stays under Past, and the group chat is deleted.
- Delete it forever. The event, its members and its chat disappear for everyone.
Both actions are also available by long-pressing the event card in the list.
Two days after its date, an event completes on its own and moves to Past. The limits to know up front: 20 active events per organizer, 50 members, 1,000 chat messages and two celebrants.
How to set up a Secret Santa in Gift Buddy
Secret Santa is a separate event type with a draw. We covered the rules and the budget in Secret Santa without the chaos; here is how it works in the app.
Setup
In the Events tab, tap + and choose Secret Santa. Then set:
- a budget: an amount and a currency, visible to every participant;
- an exchange date: the day gifts are handed over;
- a join deadline (optional): after it nobody can join, though you can extend it;
- a message to participants (optional): rules, the venue, anything else.
The I take part too switch decides whether the organizer draws a name. Turn it off if you are only running the exchange. Invites work exactly as in a regular event: from the people you follow, by link or by code. A closed event is invite-only.
One wish each
Every participant adds one wish: a link, a photo, or just a name and a price. Only their Secret Santa sees it; the organizer only sees that a wish was added. If someone would rather not give hints, they tap Surprise me and their Santa picks on their own.
Exclusions and the draw
Before the draw, add exclusions: pairs of people who must not give to each other. Couples are the usual case, since they exchange gifts anyway.
There is a maths trap here. With three participants, even one exclusion makes a fair draw impossible, because there are too few ways to arrange the pairs. If you need exclusions, gather at least four people.
The draw needs at least three participants. Tap Draw names and everyone sees their recipient. Nobody can join after that.
After the draw
Each participant gets an anonymous thread with their recipient, so you can ask about a size or a colour without giving yourself away. When the gift is sorted, switch on I have the gift. There is also a group chat for the whole exchange, for agreeing on the time and place.
Most importantly, nobody sees the pairs, not even the organizer. The organizer only sees how many gifts have been bought, so they can play like anyone else. More on the flow on the Secret Santa page.
Event or Secret Santa: which one to pick
| Event | Secret Santa | |
|---|---|---|
| Who receives | one person or a couple | everyone, from one random participant |
| Typical occasion | birthday, wedding | office, family or friends' holiday exchange |
| What members see | the celebrant's wishlist | one wish from their recipient |
| What stays secret | the event, from the celebrant (Surprise mode) | who gives to whom |
| Chat | group chat | group chat plus an anonymous thread |
In short: if everyone is giving to one person, create an event. If everyone gives to everyone, one gift each, run a Secret Santa. Both formats are summarised on the Events page.
Where to start
Gift Buddy is free to start on iPhone, and the Android version is in testing. Install the app, open the Events tab and tap +. If you are new, the guide to every screen in the app covers the basics, and to give the celebrant's friends something to claim, help them build a good wishlist.
