Custom user model

Sooner or later, the developer needs to customize the user model, so it is highly recommended to use a custom user model. Until the custom user model is done, running the migrate command causes problems. As the documentation says, “Changing AUTH_USER_MODEL after you’ve created database tables is significantly more difficult since it affects foreign keys and many-to-many relationships, for example.”

Create a new app for handling custom user model and authentication.

python manage.py startapp accounts

Custom User class inherits the functionality of AbstractUser class. It can be override or extend later if needed.

# accounts/models.py

from django.contrib.auth.models import AbstractUser

class User(AbstractUser):
    pass

Update the INSTALLED_APPS with the new accounts app and add the custom user model to AUTH_USER_MODEL.

# config/settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = [
  'django.contrib.admin',
  'django.contrib.auth',
  'django.contrib.contenttypes',
  'django.contrib.sessions',
  'django.contrib.messages',
  'django.contrib.staticfiles',
  'helloworld',
  'accounts',  # new app added
]


# At the bottom of the file
AUTH_USER_MODEL = 'accounts.User'

Now, you can migrate the data to the database.

python manage.py makemigrations accounts
python manage.py migrate

Update the user forms (you can find at http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin) with the custom user model. Create a forms.py file in the accounts directory.

WARNING! When I am writing this post, the latest version of Django is 5.1.1. In this version, use AdminUserCreationForm instead of UserCreationForm.

# accounts/forms.py

from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model
from django.contrib.auth.forms import UserCreationForm, UserChangeForm


class CustomUserCreationForm(UserCreationForm):

    class Meta:
        model = get_user_model()
        fields = ('email', 'username',)


class CustomUserChangeForm(UserChangeForm):

    class Meta:
        model = get_user_model()
        fields = ('email', 'username',)

Customize and register the custom user model in admin.py.

# accounts/admin.py

from django.contrib import admin
from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model
from django.contrib.auth.admin import UserAdmin

from .forms import CustomUserCreationForm, CustomUserChangeForm


User = get_user_model()

class CustomUserAdmin(UserAdmin):
    add_form = CustomUserCreationForm
    form = CustomUserChangeForm
    model = User
    list_display = [ 'id', 'username', 'email', 'is_superuser', 'is_active', 'last_login',]

admin.site.register(User, CustomUserAdmin)

Create superuser account to log in and handle the Django admin interface.

python manage.py createsuperuser

This tutorial based on: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.0/topics/auth/customizing/#substituting-a-custom-user-model