Media files are files uploaded by users (e.g., images, PDFs, videos). Django doesn’t automatically serve media files in development or production, but it provides an easy way to handle media uploads and configure settings to store and access these files.

Configuring Media Files in Django

You need to specify two important settings in your settings.py to manage media files:

• MEDIA_URL: The URL path for accessing media files.
• MEDIA_ROOT: The file system path where uploaded media files will be stored.

# settings.py

# URL to access media files
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'

# Directory to store uploaded media files
MEDIA_ROOT = BASE_DIR / "media"

• MEDIA_URL: This is the base URL that Django will use to serve media files (e.g., /media/).
• MEDIA_ROOT: This is the absolute file system path where media files will be stored, such as user-uploaded images and documents.

Example of Media File in Django Template

  <img src="{{ user.profile_picture.url }}" alt="Profile Picture">
  

Handling File Uploads in Django

Django provides forms to handle file uploads. The model field used to store uploaded files is FileField or ImageField for images.

Example of Model with Media File:

from django.db import models

class Profile(models.Model):
    user = models.OneToOneField(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    profile_picture = models.ImageField(upload_to='profile_pics/', null=True, blank=True)

• The upload_to argument in the ImageField specifies the subdirectory where files will be uploaded, relative to the MEDIA_ROOT directory.

Handling File Upload in Forms

You need to include an HTML form with enctype="multipart/form-data" to allow users to upload files.

Example of Form for Uploading Files:

from django import forms
from .models import Profile

class ProfileForm(forms.ModelForm):
    class Meta:
        model = Profile
        fields = ['profile_picture']

# In the view:
def upload_profile_picture(request):
    if request.method == 'POST':
        form = ProfileForm(request.POST, request.FILES)
        if form.is_valid():
            form.save()
    else:
        form = ProfileForm()
    return render(request, 'profile/upload_picture.html', {'form': form})

Example of Template for Uploading Files:

  <form method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">
      {% csrf_token %}
      {{ form.as_p }}
      <button type="submit">Upload</button>
  </form>
  

• request.FILES: This allows you to access the uploaded files in your form.