File storage API

Getting the default storage class

Django provides convenient ways to access the default storage class:

storages

A dictionary-like object that allows retrieving a storage instance using its alias as defined by STORAGES.

storages has an attribute backends, which defaults to the raw value provided in STORAGES.

Additionally, storages provides a create_storage() method that accepts the dictionary used in STORAGES for a backend, and returns a storage instance based on that backend definition. This may be useful for third-party packages needing to instantiate storages in tests:

>>> from django.core.files.storage import storages
>>> storages.backends
{'default': {'BACKEND': 'django.core.files.storage.FileSystemStorage'},
 'staticfiles': {'BACKEND': 'django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.StaticFilesStorage'},
 'custom': {'BACKEND': 'package.storage.CustomStorage'}}
>>> storage_instance = storages.create_storage({"BACKEND": "package.storage.CustomStorage"})

class DefaultStorage[source]

DefaultStorage provides lazy access to the default storage system as defined by default key in STORAGES. DefaultStorage uses storages internally.

default_storage

default_storage is an instance of the DefaultStorage.

The FileSystemStorage class

class FileSystemStorage(location=None, base_url=None, file_permissions_mode=None, directory_permissions_mode=None, allow_overwrite=False)[source]

The FileSystemStorage class implements basic file storage on a local filesystem. It inherits from Storage and provides implementations for all the public methods thereof.

Note

The FileSystemStorage.delete() method will not raise an exception if the given file name does not exist.

location[source]

Absolute path to the directory that will hold the files. Defaults to the value of your MEDIA_ROOT setting.

base_url[source]

URL that serves the files stored at this location. Defaults to the value of your MEDIA_URL setting.

file_permissions_mode[source]

The file system permissions that the file will receive when it is saved. Defaults to FILE_UPLOAD_PERMISSIONS.

directory_permissions_mode[source]

The file system permissions that the directory will receive when it is saved. Defaults to FILE_UPLOAD_DIRECTORY_PERMISSIONS.

allow_overwrite

Flag to control allowing saving a new file over an existing one. Defaults to False.

get_created_time(name)[source]

Returns a datetime of the system’s ctime, i.e. os.path.getctime(). On some systems (like Unix), this is the time of the last metadata change, and on others (like Windows), it’s the creation time of the file.

The InMemoryStorage class

class InMemoryStorage(location=None, base_url=None, file_permissions_mode=None, directory_permissions_mode=None)[source]

The InMemoryStorage class implements a memory-based file storage. It has no persistence, but can be useful for speeding up tests by avoiding disk access.

location[source]

Absolute path to the directory name assigned to files. Defaults to the value of your MEDIA_ROOT setting.

base_url[source]

URL that serves the files stored at this location. Defaults to the value of your MEDIA_URL setting.

file_permissions_mode[source]

The file system permissions assigned to files, provided for compatibility with FileSystemStorage. Defaults to FILE_UPLOAD_PERMISSIONS.

directory_permissions_mode[source]

The file system permissions assigned to directories, provided for compatibility with FileSystemStorage. Defaults to FILE_UPLOAD_DIRECTORY_PERMISSIONS.

The Storage class

class Storage[source]

The Storage class provides a standardized API for storing files, along with a set of default behaviors that all other storage systems can inherit or override as necessary.

Note

When methods return naive datetime objects, the effective timezone used will be the current value of os.environ['TZ']; note that this is usually set from Django’s TIME_ZONE.

delete(name)[source]

Deletes the file referenced by name. If deletion is not supported on the target storage system this will raise NotImplementedError instead.

exists(name)[source]

Returns True if a file referenced by the given name already exists in the storage system.

get_accessed_time(name)[source]

Returns a datetime of the last accessed time of the file. For storage systems unable to return the last accessed time this will raise NotImplementedError.

If USE_TZ is True, returns an aware datetime, otherwise returns a naive datetime in the local timezone.

get_alternative_name(file_root, file_ext)[source]

Returns an alternative filename based on the file_root and file_ext parameters, an underscore plus a random 7 character alphanumeric string is appended to the filename before the extension.

get_available_name(name, max_length=None)[source]

Returns a filename based on the name parameter that’s free and available for new content to be written to on the target storage system.

The length of the filename will not exceed max_length, if provided. If a free unique filename cannot be found, a SuspiciousFileOperation exception will be raised.

If a file with name already exists, get_alternative_name() is called to obtain an alternative name.

get_created_time(name)[source]

Returns a datetime of the creation time of the file. For storage systems unable to return the creation time this will raise NotImplementedError.

If USE_TZ is True, returns an aware datetime, otherwise returns a naive datetime in the local timezone.

get_modified_time(name)[source]

Returns a datetime of the last modified time of the file. For storage systems unable to return the last modified time this will raise NotImplementedError.

If USE_TZ is True, returns an aware datetime, otherwise returns a naive datetime in the local timezone.

get_valid_name(name)[source]

Returns a filename based on the name parameter that’s suitable for use on the target storage system.

generate_filename(filename)[source]

Validates the filename by calling get_valid_name and returns a filename to be passed to the save() method.

The filename argument may include a path as returned by FileField.upload_to. In that case, the path won’t be passed to get_valid_name but will be prepended back to the resulting name.

The default implementation uses os.path operations. Override this method if that’s not appropriate for your storage.

listdir(path)[source]

Lists the contents of the specified path, returning a 2-tuple of lists; the first item being directories, the second item being files. For storage systems that aren’t able to provide such a listing, this will raise a NotImplementedError instead.

open(name, mode='rb')[source]

Opens the file given by name. Note that although the returned file is guaranteed to be a File object, it might actually be some subclass. In the case of remote file storage this means that reading/writing could be quite slow, so be warned.

path(name)[source]

The local filesystem path where the file can be opened using Python’s standard open(). For storage systems that aren’t accessible from the local filesystem, this will raise NotImplementedError instead.

save(name, content, max_length=None)[source]

Saves a new file using the storage system, preferably with the name specified. If there already exists a file with this name name, the storage system may modify the filename as necessary to get a unique name. The actual name of the stored file will be returned.

The max_length argument is passed along to get_available_name().

The content argument must be an instance of django.core.files.File or a file-like object that can be wrapped in File.

size(name)[source]

Returns the total size, in bytes, of the file referenced by name. For storage systems that aren’t able to return the file size this will raise NotImplementedError instead.

url(name)[source]

Returns the URL where the contents of the file referenced by name can be accessed. For storage systems that don’t support access by URL this will raise NotImplementedError instead.

There are community-maintained solutions too!

Django has a vibrant ecosystem. There are storage backends highlighted on the Community Ecosystem page. The Django Packages Storage Backends grid has even more options for you!