Frequently asked questions
winner-picker.online is a free giveaway picker that draws winners from YouTube comments or a CSV, Excel or pasted list, with a server-issued seed that makes every draw verifiable. Uploaded lists stay in your browser. Below are answers to the questions hosts and participants ask most.
Is winner-picker.online free?
Yes. The picker is free to use, with no sign-up and no paid plan.
How does the picker choose a winner?
Your browser fingerprints the cleaned list, our server stores the fingerprint and only then issues a 32-byte random seed. The winners are computed from the list and the seed with a SHA-256 based algorithm, before the reveal animation starts.
Is my list uploaded to your server?
No. Your file or pasted names are read inside your browser tab. Only a SHA-256 fingerprint of the cleaned list, the entry counts, the settings and the winners (with emails masked) are stored to create the public result page.
Which entries can I use?
YouTube comments from a public video link, CSV, TSV, TXT, XLSX and XLS files up to 10 MB, or names pasted one per line. Exports from Mailchimp, MailerLite, Google Sheets and Excel work as they are.
How many winners can I pick?
Up to 10 winners and 5 backup winners per draw. A backup can replace a disqualified winner, and the replacement is logged on the public result page.
How are duplicates handled?
Choose the column that makes an entry unique, such as the email. Duplicates in that column are removed case-insensitively, so each person counts once. You can switch this off.
Can I give some entries more chances?
Yes. Pick a tickets column and each row's chance becomes proportional to its ticket count, from 1 to 1,000 per row. Duplicate rows add their tickets together.
Can I record the reveal?
Yes, with your own screen recorder, such as the one built into macOS, Windows, iOS or Android. The reveal runs full screen in 16:9 or 9:16 with a countdown and no banners.
Are email addresses shown publicly?
No. Email addresses are always masked on result pages, for example j*******@gmail.com. You can also mask them on screen during the reveal.
Can participants check the result?
Yes. Every draw gets a public result page with the list fingerprint, the seed, the rules and the winners. Anyone with the original list can recompute the draw on the verify page.
How do I delete a result page?
Open the draw results in the same browser where you ran the draw and press “Delete public page”. Otherwise result pages are deleted automatically 12 months after the draw.
Can I pick a winner from YouTube, Instagram, Facebook or TikTok comments?
YouTube, yes: paste a public video link and the picker loads its comments through the official YouTube Data API. Instagram, Facebook and TikTok comments are not supported yet; for those, put the entries into a list and draw from that.
Can I require entrants to like, follow or share?
No. Official platform APIs do not reveal who liked, followed or shared a post, so no tool can check those rules honestly, and we do not offer them.
Who runs winner-picker.online?
winner-picker.online is built and operated by Hawk Minds. You can reach us at hello@winner-picker.online.