Django Dynamic Filenames

June 3, 2026 ยท View on GitHub

Django DynFN: Advanced filename patterns using f-Strings
Documentation | Issues | Changelog | Funding ๐Ÿ’š

Django Dynamic Filenames

Write advanced filename patterns using the Format String Syntax.

Sponsors

Sponsors

Getting Started

Installation

pip install django-dynamic-filenames

Samples

Basic example:

from django.db import models
from dynamic_filenames import FilePattern

upload_to_pattern = FilePattern(
    filename_pattern="{app_label:.25}/{model_name:.30}/{instance.created:%Y-%m-%d}/{uuid:base32}{ext}"
)


class FileModel(models.Model):
    my_file = models.FileField(upload_to=upload_to_pattern)
    created = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)

Auto slug example:

Features

Field names

  • ext: File extension including the dot.
  • name: Filename excluding the folders.
  • model_name: Name of the Django model.
  • app_label: App label of the Django model.
  • instance: Instance of the model before it has been saved. You may not have a primary key at this point.
  • uuid: UUID version 4 that supports multiple type specifiers. The UUID will be the same should you use it twice in the same string, but different on each invocation of the upload_to callable.

The type specifiers allow you to format the UUID in different ways, e.g. {uuid:x} will give you a with a hexadecimal UUID.

The supported type specifiers are:

  • s: String representation of a UUID including dashes.
  • i: Integer representation of a UUID. Like to UUID.int.
  • x: Hexadecimal (Base16) representation of a UUID. Like to UUID.hex.
  • X: Upper case hexadecimal representation of a UUID. Like to UUID.hex.
  • base32: Base32 representation of a UUID without padding.
  • base64: Base64 representation of a UUID without padding.

Warning

Not all file systems support Base64 file names.

All type specifiers also support precisions to cut the string, e.g. {{uuid:.2base32}} would only return the first 2 characters of a Base32 encoded UUID.

Type specifiers

You can also use a special slug type specifier, that slugifies strings.

Example:

from django.db import models
from dynamic_filenames import FilePattern

upload_to_pattern = FilePattern(
    filename_pattern="{app_label:.25}/{model_name:.30}/{instance.title:.40slug}{ext}"
)


class FileModel(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    my_file = models.FileField(upload_to=upload_to_pattern)

Slug type specifiers also support precisions to cut the string. In the example above the slug of the instance title will be cut at 40 characters.