Installation and configuration

import-export is available on the Python Package Index (PyPI), so it can be installed with standard Python tools like pip or easy_install:

pip install django-import-export

This will automatically install the default formats supported by tablib. If you need additional formats you should install the extra dependencies as required appropriate tablib dependencies (e.g. pip install django-import-export[xlsx]).

To install all available formats, use pip install django-import-export[all].

For all formats, see the tablib documentation.

Alternatively, you can install the git repository directly to obtain the development version:

pip install -e git+https://github.com/django-import-export/django-import-export.git#egg=django-import-export

Now, you’re good to go, unless you want to use import_export from the admin as well. In this case, you need to add it to your INSTALLED_APPS and let Django collect its static files.

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    'import_export',
)

$ python manage.py collectstatic

All prerequisites are set up! See Getting started to learn how to use import-export in your project.

Settings

You can configure the following in your settings file:

IMPORT_EXPORT_USE_TRANSACTIONS

Controls if resource importing should use database transactions. Defaults to True. Using transactions makes imports safer as a failure during import won’t import only part of the data set.

Can be overridden on a Resource class by setting the use_transactions class attribute.

IMPORT_EXPORT_SKIP_ADMIN_LOG

If set to True, skips the creation of admin log entries when importing via the Admin UI. Defaults to False. This can speed up importing large data sets, at the cost of losing an audit trail.

Can be overridden on a ModelAdmin class inheriting from ImportMixin by setting the skip_admin_log class attribute.

IMPORT_EXPORT_TMP_STORAGE_CLASS

A string path to the preferred temporary storage module.

Controls which storage class to use for storing the temporary uploaded file during imports. Defaults to import_export.tmp_storages.TempFolderStorage.

Can be overridden on a ModelAdmin class inheriting from ImportMixin by setting the tmp_storage_class class attribute.

IMPORT_EXPORT_DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE

A string path to a customized storage implementation.

This setting is deprecated and only applies if using Django with a version less than 4.2, and will be removed in a future release.

IMPORT_EXPORT_IMPORT_PERMISSION_CODE

If set, lists the permission code that is required for users to perform the ‘import’ action. Defaults to None, which means all users can perform imports.

Django’s built-in permissions have the codes add, change, delete, and view. You can also add your own permissions. For example, if you set this value to ‘import’, then you can define an explicit permission for import in the example app with:

from core.models import Book
from django.contrib.auth.models import Permission
from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType

content_type = ContentType.objects.get_for_model(Book)
permission = Permission.objects.create(
  codename="import_book",
  name="Can import book",
  content_type=content_type,
)

Now only users who are assigned ‘import_book’ permission will be able to perform imports. For more information refer to the Django auth documentation.

IMPORT_EXPORT_EXPORT_PERMISSION_CODE

Defines the same behaviour as IMPORT_EXPORT_IMPORT_PERMISSION_CODE, but for export.

IMPORT_EXPORT_CHUNK_SIZE

An integer that defines the size of chunks when iterating a QuerySet for data exports. Defaults to 100. You may be able to save memory usage by decreasing it, or speed up exports by increasing it.

Can be overridden on a Resource class by setting the chunk_size class attribute.

IMPORT_EXPORT_SKIP_ADMIN_CONFIRM

If True, no import confirmation page will be presented to the user in the Admin UI. The file will be imported in a single step.

By default, the import will occur in a transaction. If the import causes any runtime errors (including validation errors), then the errors are presented to the user and then entire transaction is rolled back.

Note that if you disable transaction support via configuration (or if your database does not support transactions), then validation errors will still be presented to the user but valid rows will have imported.

IMPORT_EXPORT_SKIP_ADMIN_ACTION_EXPORT_UI

A boolean value which will skip the ‘file format’ and ‘resource’ select page in the Admin UI when the export is requested from an Admin UI action. If TRUE then the first element in the ‘file format’ and ‘resource’ lists will be used. By default this is FALSE.

IMPORT_EXPORT_ESCAPE_FORMULAE_ON_EXPORT

If set to True, strings will be sanitized by removing any leading ‘=’ character. This is to prevent execution of Excel formulae. By default this is False.

IMPORT_EXPORT_FORMATS

A list that defines which file formats will be allowed during imports and exports. Defaults to import_export.formats.base_formats.DEFAULT_FORMATS. The values must be those provided in import_export.formats.base_formats e.g

# settings.py
from import_export.formats.base_formats import XLSX
IMPORT_EXPORT_FORMATS = [XLSX]

IMPORT_FORMATS

A list that defines which file formats will be allowed during imports. Defaults to IMPORT_EXPORT_FORMATS. The values must be those provided in import_export.formats.base_formats e.g

# settings.py
from import_export.formats.base_formats import CSV, XLSX
IMPORT_FORMATS = [CSV, XLSX]

EXPORT_FORMATS

A list that defines which file formats will be allowed during exports. Defaults to IMPORT_EXPORT_FORMATS. The values must be those provided in import_export.formats.base_formats e.g

# settings.py
from import_export.formats.base_formats import XLSX
EXPORT_FORMATS = [XLSX]

Example app

There’s an example application that showcases what import_export can do.

Before starting, set up a virtual environment (“venv”) using these instructions.

You can initialize and run the example application as follows:

cd tests
./manage.py makemigrations
./manage.py migrate
./manage.py createsuperuser
./manage.py loaddata author.json category.json book.json
./manage.py runserver

Go to http://127.0.0.1:8000

For example import files, see Test data.