ModelAdmin List Filters

ModelAdmin classes can define list filters that appear in the right sidebar of the change list page of the admin, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

../../../../_images/list_filter.png

To activate per-field filtering, set ModelAdmin.list_filter to a list or tuple of elements, where each element is one of the following types:

  • A field name.
  • A subclass of django.contrib.admin.SimpleListFilter.
  • A 2-tuple containing a field name and a subclass of django.contrib.admin.FieldListFilter.

See the examples below for discussion of each of these options for defining list_filter.

Using a field name

The simplest option is to specify the required field names from your model.

Each specified field should be either a BooleanField, CharField, DateField, DateTimeField, IntegerField, ForeignKey or ManyToManyField, for example:

class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_filter = ["is_staff", "company"]

Field names in list_filter can also span relations using the __ lookup, for example:

class PersonAdmin(admin.UserAdmin):
    list_filter = ["company__name"]

Using a SimpleListFilter

For custom filtering, you can define your own list filter by subclassing django.contrib.admin.SimpleListFilter. You need to provide the title and parameter_name attributes, and override the lookups and queryset methods, e.g.:

from datetime import date

from django.contrib import admin
from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy as _


class DecadeBornListFilter(admin.SimpleListFilter):
    # Human-readable title which will be displayed in the
    # right admin sidebar just above the filter options.
    title = _("decade born")

    # Parameter for the filter that will be used in the URL query.
    parameter_name = "decade"

    def lookups(self, request, model_admin):
        """
        Returns a list of tuples. The first element in each
        tuple is the coded value for the option that will
        appear in the URL query. The second element is the
        human-readable name for the option that will appear
        in the right sidebar.
        """
        return [
            ("80s", _("in the eighties")),
            ("90s", _("in the nineties")),
        ]

    def queryset(self, request, queryset):
        """
        Returns the filtered queryset based on the value
        provided in the query string and retrievable via
        `self.value()`.
        """
        # Compare the requested value (either '80s' or '90s')
        # to decide how to filter the queryset.
        if self.value() == "80s":
            return queryset.filter(
                birthday__gte=date(1980, 1, 1),
                birthday__lte=date(1989, 12, 31),
            )
        if self.value() == "90s":
            return queryset.filter(
                birthday__gte=date(1990, 1, 1),
                birthday__lte=date(1999, 12, 31),
            )


class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_filter = [DecadeBornListFilter]

Note

As a convenience, the HttpRequest object is passed to the lookups and queryset methods, for example:

class AuthDecadeBornListFilter(DecadeBornListFilter):
    def lookups(self, request, model_admin):
        if request.user.is_superuser:
            return super().lookups(request, model_admin)

    def queryset(self, request, queryset):
        if request.user.is_superuser:
            return super().queryset(request, queryset)

Also as a convenience, the ModelAdmin object is passed to the lookups method, for example if you want to base the lookups on the available data:

class AdvancedDecadeBornListFilter(DecadeBornListFilter):
    def lookups(self, request, model_admin):
        """
        Only show the lookups if there actually is
        anyone born in the corresponding decades.
        """
        qs = model_admin.get_queryset(request)
        if qs.filter(
            birthday__gte=date(1980, 1, 1),
            birthday__lte=date(1989, 12, 31),
        ).exists():
            yield ("80s", _("in the eighties"))
        if qs.filter(
            birthday__gte=date(1990, 1, 1),
            birthday__lte=date(1999, 12, 31),
        ).exists():
            yield ("90s", _("in the nineties"))

Using a field name and an explicit FieldListFilter

Finally, if you wish to specify an explicit filter type to use with a field you may provide a list_filter item as a 2-tuple, where the first element is a field name and the second element is a class inheriting from django.contrib.admin.FieldListFilter, for example:

class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_filter = [
        ("is_staff", admin.BooleanFieldListFilter),
    ]

Here the is_staff field will use the BooleanFieldListFilter. Specifying only the field name, fields will automatically use the appropriate filter for most cases, but this format allows you to control the filter used.

The following examples show available filter classes that you need to opt-in to use.

You can limit the choices of a related model to the objects involved in that relation using RelatedOnlyFieldListFilter:

class BookAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_filter = [
        ("author", admin.RelatedOnlyFieldListFilter),
    ]

Assuming author is a ForeignKey to a User model, this will limit the list_filter choices to the users who have written a book, instead of listing all users.

You can filter empty values using EmptyFieldListFilter, which can filter on both empty strings and nulls, depending on what the field allows to store:

class BookAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_filter = [
        ("title", admin.EmptyFieldListFilter),
    ]

By defining a filter using the __in lookup, it is possible to filter for any of a group of values. You need to override the expected_parameters method, and the specify the lookup_kwargs attribute with the appropriate field name. By default, multiple values in the query string will be separated with commas, but this can be customized via the list_separator attribute. The following example shows such a filter using the vertical-pipe character as the separator:

class FilterWithCustomSeparator(admin.FieldListFilter):
    # custom list separator that should be used to separate values.
    list_separator = "|"

    def __init__(self, field, request, params, model, model_admin, field_path):
        self.lookup_kwarg = "%s__in" % field_path
        super().__init__(field, request, params, model, model_admin, field_path)

    def expected_parameters(self):
        return [self.lookup_kwarg]

Note

The GenericForeignKey field is not supported.

List filters typically appear only if the filter has more than one choice. A filter’s has_output() method controls whether or not it appears.

It is possible to specify a custom template for rendering a list filter:

class FilterWithCustomTemplate(admin.SimpleListFilter):
    template = "custom_template.html"

See the default template provided by Django (admin/filter.html) for a concrete example.

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