# Django 6.0.5 documentation

# Django 6.1 release notes - UNDER DEVELOPMENT

Expected August 2026

Welcome to Django 6.1!

These release notes cover the new features, as well as some backwards incompatible changes you’ll want to be aware of when upgrading from Django 6.0 or earlier. We’ve begun the deprecation process for some features.

See the How to upgrade Django to a newer version guide if you’re updating an existing project.

## Python compatibility

Django 6.1 supports Python 3.12, 3.13, and 3.14. We highly recommend, and only officially support, the latest release of each series.

## What’s new in Django 6.1

### Model field fetch modes

The on-demand fetching behavior of model fields is now configurable with fetch modes. These modes allow you to control how Django fetches data from the database when an unfetched field is accessed.

Django provides three fetch modes:

1. `FETCH_ONE`, the default, fetches the missing field for the current instance only. This mode represents Django’s existing behavior.

2. `FETCH_PEERS` fetches a missing field for all instances that came from the same `QuerySet`.

   This mode works like an on-demand `prefetch_related()`. It can reduce most cases of the “N+1 queries problem” to two queries without any work to maintain a list of fields to prefetch.

3. `RAISE` raises a `FieldFetchBlocked` exception.

   This mode can prevent unintentional queries in performance-critical sections of code.

Use the new method `QuerySet.fetch_mode()` to set the fetch mode for model instances fetched by the `QuerySet`:

    from django.db import models

    books = Book.objects.fetch_mode(models.FETCH_PEERS)
    for book in books:
        print(book.author.name)

Despite the loop accessing the `author` foreign key on each instance, the `FETCH_PEERS` fetch mode will make the above example perform only two queries:

1. Fetch all books.

2. Fetch associated authors.

See fetch modes for more details.

### Database-level delete options for `ForeignKey.on_delete`

`ForeignKey.on_delete` now supports database-level delete options:

- `DB_CASCADE`

- `DB_SET_NULL`

- `DB_SET_DEFAULT`

These options handle deletion logic entirely within the database, using the SQL `ON DELETE` clause. They are thus more efficient than the existing Python-level options, as Django does not need to load objects before deleting them. As a consequence, the `DB_CASCADE` option does not trigger the `pre_delete` or `post_delete` signals.

### Mailers

The new `MAILERS` setting supports configuring multiple email backends with different options, similar to existing mechanisms for `CACHES`, `DATABASES`, `STORAGES`, and `TASKS`:

    MAILERS = {
        "default": {
            "BACKEND": "django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend",
            "OPTIONS": {"host": "smtp.example.com", "use_tls": True},
        },
        "marketing": {
            "BACKEND": "example.third.party.EmailBackend",
            "OPTIONS": {"region": "africa-1"},
        },
    }

You can select a mailer with the new `using` argument to email sending functions, or obtain an email backend instance with `mail.mailers[alias]`. See Sending email for more details.

`MAILERS` is not yet enabled by default in existing projects. It will replace `EMAIL_BACKEND` and related `EMAIL_*` settings in Django 7.0. Until then, the older settings will continue to work but will issue deprecation warnings: see the list of email deprecations below.

You can opt into the new feature at any time before Django 7.0; see Migrating email to mailers. To ease the transition, `mail.mailers["default"]` works with either `MAILERS` or the deprecated `EMAIL_BACKEND` setting defined. The deprecated `get_connection()` function will also return an instance of the default mailer when `MAILERS` is defined.

### Minor features

#### `django.contrib.admin`

- The admin site login view now redirects authenticated users to the next URL, if available, instead of always redirecting to the admin index page.

- The admin’s `FilteredSelectMultiple` widget now uses `<optgroup>`s to preserve named groups (e.g. `choices=[("Group", [("1", "Item")]), ...]`).

- When `ModelAdmin.list_select_related` is `False` (the default), the change list now selects only the foreign key fields specified in `ModelAdmin.list_display`, rather than all foreign key fields. This should improve performance for models with many foreign key fields.

- The `delete_confirmation_max_display` option allows customizing how many objects are displayed on admin delete confirmation pages and inline protected deletion errors before the remainder is truncated. The default is `None` (no truncation).

- In order to improve accessibility of the admin change forms:

  - Form fields are now shown below their respective labels instead of next to them.

  - Help text is now shown after the field label and before the field input.

  - Validation errors are now shown after the help text and before the field input.

  - Checkboxes are an exception to the above changes and continue to be displayed in their original layout.

- `list_display` now uses boolean icons for boolean fields on related models.

- The new `location` keyword argument of the `action()` decorator specifies which admin views the action is available on. The action is available on the admin change list page by default. It can also be available on the admin change form. See Controlling where actions are available for details.

- The new `description_plural` keyword argument of the `action()` decorator specifies a human-readable description for actions on the admin change list page. Defaults to the `description` value. This is useful when the action is available on both the admin change list and admin change form.

#### `django.contrib.auth`

- The default iteration count for the PBKDF2 password hasher is increased from 1,200,000 to 1,500,000.

- `Permission.name` and `Permission.codename` values are now renamed when renaming models via a migration.

- The new `Permission.user_perm_str` property returns the string suitable to use with `User.has_perm()`.

#### `django.contrib.gis`

- The `isempty` lookup and `IsEmpty()` database function are now supported on SpatiaLite.

- The new `num_dimensions` lookup and `NumDimensions()` database function allow filtering geometries by the number of dimensions on PostGIS and SpatiaLite.

- `OpenLayersWidget` is now based on OpenLayers 10.9.0 (previously 7.2.2).

#### `django.contrib.postgres`

- `inspectdb` now introspects `HStoreField` when `psycopg` 3.2+ is installed and `django.contrib.postgres` is in `INSTALLED_APPS`.

- `ExclusionConstraint` now supports the Hash index type.

#### `django.contrib.sessions`

- `SessionBase` now supports boolean evaluation via `__bool__()`.

#### CSP

- The new `csp_nonce_attr` template tag renders the CSP nonce attribute on `<script>` and `<link>` elements, or renders a `Media` object’s assets with the nonce applied, when the `csp()` context processor is configured. See Nonce usage for details.

- A new `security.W027` system check warns when `ContentSecurityPolicyMiddleware` is enabled with `CSP.NONCE` in a CSP policy but `django.template.context_processors.csp` is not configured.

- CSP nonce attributes are now added on `<script>`, `<style>`, and `<link>` elements in admin templates and all built-in templates when the `csp()` context processor is configured. See Nonce config for setup instructions.

#### Forms

- The new asset object `Stylesheet` is available for adding custom HTML-attributes to stylesheet links in form media. See paths as objects for more details.

- The new constant `django.db.models.fields.BLANK_CHOICE_LABEL` defines a more accessible and translatable default label for the blank choice in forms, which is appended to most `choices` lists. The transitional setting `USE_BLANK_CHOICE_DASH` allows you to revert back to the old default label.

- `FilePathField` now provides a `set_choices()` method to scan the directory at `path` and refresh the field’s choices. This allows per-request refreshing when called in a form’s `__init__()`.

#### Generic Views

- The new `RedirectView.preserve_request` attribute allows preserving the HTTP method and body during redirects, using 307/308 status codes instead of 302/301.

#### Management Commands

- Management commands now set `ArgumentParser`'s `suggest_on_error` argument to `True` by default on Python 3.14, enabling suggestions for incorrectly typed subcommand names and argument choices.

- The `loaddata` command now calls `m2m_changed` signals with `raw=True` when loading fixtures.

#### Models

- `QuerySet.in_bulk()` now supports chaining after `QuerySet.values()` and `QuerySet.values_list()`.

- The new `JSONNull` expression provides an explicit way to represent the JSON scalar `null`. It can be used when saving a top-level `JSONField` value, or querying for top-level or nested JSON `null` values. See Storing and querying for None for usage examples and some caveats.

- `DecimalField.max_digits` and `DecimalField.decimal_places` are no longer required to be set on Oracle, PostgreSQL, and SQLite.

- `JSONField` now supports negative array indexing on Oracle 21c+.

- The new `UUID4` and `UUID7` database functions were added.

- `GeneratedField` now supports stored columns (`db_persist` set to `True`) on Oracle 23ai/26ai (23.7+).

- The `m2m_changed` signal now receives a `raw` argument.

- `StringAgg` now supports `distinct=True` on SQLite when using the default delimiter `Value(",")` only.

- The new `QuerySet.totally_ordered` property returns `True` if the `QuerySet` is ordered and the ordering is deterministic.

- The new `BitAnd`, `BitOr`, and `BitXor` aggregates return the bitwise `AND`, `OR`, `XOR`, respectively. These aggregates were previously included only in `contrib.postgres`.

- `django.db.models.BinaryField` now validates Base64 input strictly. Invalid Base64 strings now raise `ValidationError` instead of being silently accepted.

#### Requests and Responses

- `HttpRequest.multipart_parser_class` can now be customized to use a different multipart parser class.

- `HttpResponseRedirect` (and its subclasses), as well as the `redirect()` shortcut, now accept a `max_length` parameter to override the default maximum URL length limit.

#### Security

- Signed cookies now use an unambiguous salt derivation by default. Set `SIGNED_COOKIE_LEGACY_SALT_FALLBACK` to `True` to continue accepting legacy signed cookies.

#### Serialization

- Subclasses of models defining the `natural_key()` method can now opt out of natural key serialization by overriding the method to return an empty tuple: `()`. This ensures primary keys are serialized when using `dumpdata --natural-primary`.

- The XML deserializer now raises `SuspiciousOperation` when it encounters unexpected nested tags.

#### Tasks

- The `task()` decorator now accepts `**kwargs`, which are forwarded to the backend’s `task_class`.

- `Task` and `TaskResult` instances can now be pickled and unpickled.

#### Tests

- `assertContains()` and `assertNotContains()` can now be called multiple times on the same `StreamingHttpResponse`. Previously, they would consume the streaming response’s content, causing subsequent calls to fail.

#### Utilities

- `parse_duration()` now supports ISO 8601 time periods expressed in weeks (`PnW`).

## Backwards incompatible changes in 6.1

### Database backend API

This section describes changes that may be needed in third-party database backends.

- The `DatabaseOperations.adapt_durationfield_value()` hook is added. If the database has native support for `DurationField`, override this method to simply return the value.

- The `DatabaseIntrospection.get_relations()` should now return a dictionary with 3-tuples containing (`field_name_other_table`, `other_table`, `db_on_delete`) as values. `db_on_delete` is one of the database-level delete options e.g. `DB_CASCADE`.

- Set the new `DatabaseFeatures.supports_inspectdb` attribute to `False` if the management command isn’t supported.

- The `DatabaseFeatures.prohibits_dollar_signs_in_column_aliases` feature flag is removed.

- The `DatabaseOperations.binary_placeholder_sql()` method now expects a query compiler as an extra positional argument and should return a two-elements tuple composed of an SQL format string and a tuple of associated parameters.

- The `BaseSpatialOperations.get_geom_placeholder()` method is renamed to `get_geom_placeholder_sql` and is expected to return a two-elements tuple composed of an SQL format string and a tuple of associated parameters.

- Set the new `DatabaseFeatures.supports_bit_aggregations` attribute to `False` if the database doesn’t support bitwise aggregations.

### `django.contrib.admin`

- The `wide` class is removed, as it was made obsolete by the new layout.

- The `object-tools` block is hoisted out of the `content` block in forms.

- The undocumented `InclusionAdminNode.__init__()` now takes the template tag `name` as the first positional argument.

- The undocumented `ChangeList.has_related_field_in_list_display()` method has been replaced with `ChangeList.get_select_related_fields()`.

### `django.contrib.auth`

- Under ASGI, `RemoteUserMiddleware` no longer prefixes `HTTP_` when looking up custom values in `request.META`. For example, to send `-H "AuthUser: ..."`, the `header` attribute should be `HTTP_AUTHUSER`. This restores the behavior prior to Django 5.2. (The default value of `REMOTE_USER` is not affected.)

### `django.contrib.gis`

- Support for PostGIS 3.1 is removed.

- Support for GEOS 3.8 and 3.9 is removed.

- Support for GDAL 3.1 and 3.2 is removed.

### `django.contrib.postgres`

- Top-level elements set to `None` in an `ArrayField` with a `JSONField` base field are now saved as SQL `NULL` instead of the JSON `null` primitive. This matches the behavior of a standalone `JSONField` when storing `None` values.

### Email

- Providing `fail_silently=True`, `auth_user`, or `auth_password` to mail sending functions (such as `send_mail()`) while also providing a `connection` now raises a `TypeError`.

- The undocumented `EmailMessage.get_connection()` method is no longer used. Defining it in a subclass or trying to call it now causes an error.

- `EmailMessage.send()` no longer sets the `connection` property on the `EmailMessage`. (This behavior was never documented. The `send()` method will still use a `connection` that is set on the message before sending.)

### Models

- The `iexact=None` lookup on `JSONField` key transforms now matches JSON `null`, to match the behavior of `exact=None` on key transforms. Previously, it was interpreted as an `isnull` lookup.

- `first()` and `last()` no longer order by the primary key when a `QuerySet`’s ordering has been forcibly cleared by calling `order_by()` with no arguments.

- SQL `SELECT` aliases originating from `QuerySet.annotate()` calls as well as table and `JOIN` aliases are now systematically quoted to prevent special character collisions. Because quoted aliases are case-sensitive, raw SQL references to aliases mixing case, such as when using `RawSQL`, might have to be adjusted to also make use of quoting.

### System checks

- The `check` management command now supplies all `databases` if not specified. Callers should be prepared for databases to be accessed.

### Dropped support for PostgreSQL 14

Upstream support for PostgreSQL 14 ends in November 2026. Django 6.1 supports PostgreSQL 15 and higher.

### Dropped support for MySQL < 8.4

Upstream support for MySQL 8.0 ends in April 2026, and MySQL 8.1-8.3 are short-term innovation releases. Django 6.1 supports MySQL 8.4 and higher.

### Dropped support for MariaDB < 10.11

Upstream support for MariaDB 10.6 ends in July 2026, and MariaDB 10.7-10.10 are short-term maintenance releases. Django 6.1 supports MariaDB 10.11 and higher.

### Miscellaneous

- The minimum supported version of SQLite is increased from 3.31.0 to 3.37.0.

- The default value of the transitional setting `SIGNED_COOKIE_LEGACY_SALT_FALLBACK` is now `False`.

- `GenericForeignKey` now uses a separate descriptor class: the private `GenericForeignKeyDescriptor`.

- The undocumented `django.template.library.parse_bits()` function no longer accepts the `takes_context` argument.

- The `File` class now always evaluates to `True` in boolean contexts, rather than relying on the `name` attribute. The built-in subclasses `FieldFile`, `UploadedFile`, `TemporaryUploadedFile`, `InMemoryUploadedFile`, and `SimpleUploadedFile` retain the previous behavior of evaluating based on the `name` attribute.

- The undocumented `connection()` method of `log.AdminEmailHandler` has been removed and is no longer called. Subclasses overriding `AdminEmailHandler.send_mail()` should avoid calling `connection()`. See Replacing get_connection() and connection arguments if specific connection configuration is needed.

- The internal implementation of `BrokenLinkEmailsMiddleware` has been updated for mailers. If you have subclassed it to customize email sending behavior (as suggested in How to manage error reporting), you may want to review the updates in the base `BrokenLinkEmailsMiddleware` class.

- `django.http.multipartparser.MultiPartParser` now uses strict Base64 validation when decoding encoded request data. Previously, invalid data could be silently ignored or result in empty values. Invalid data now raises `MultiPartParserError`.

- `django.core.cache.backends.db.DatabaseCache` now uses strict Base64 validation when decoding cached values. Invalid Base64 data will raise an exception instead of being silently ignored. Cache values generated by Django are unaffected, as they are always valid Base64. However, existing cache entries containing non-standard or corrupted Base64 data may no longer be readable.

## Features deprecated in 6.1

### Email

- The `EMAIL_BACKEND`, `EMAIL_FILE_PATH`, `EMAIL_HOST`, `EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD`, `EMAIL_HOST_USER`, `EMAIL_PORT`, `EMAIL_USE_TLS`, `EMAIL_USE_SSL`, `EMAIL_SSL_CERTFILE`, `EMAIL_SSL_KEYFILE`, and `EMAIL_TIMEOUT` settings are deprecated. Replace them with a `MAILERS` configuration dictionary as described in Migrating email to mailers.

- `mail.get_connection()` is deprecated. See Replacing get_connection() and connection arguments for replacement options.

- The `connection` argument to `send_mail()`, `send_mass_mail()`, `mail_admins()`, `mail_managers()`, and `EmailMessage` is deprecated. The `EmailMessage.connection` attribute is also deprecated. Switch to the `using` argument with a `MAILERS` alias.

- The `fail_silently` argument to `send_mail()`, `send_mass_mail()`, `mail_admins()`, `mail_managers()`, and `EmailMessage.send()` is deprecated. See Replacing fail_silently for alternatives.

- The `auth_user` and `auth_password` arguments to `send_mail()` and `send_mass_mail()` are deprecated. Replace them with `"username"` and `"password"` `OPTIONS` in `MAILERS`. See Replacing auth_user and auth_password.

- Directly constructing and using instances of the smtp.EmailBackend class is deprecated. Use `mail.mailers` to obtain email backend instances.

- The `BaseEmailBackend.__init__()` constructor no longer silently ignores unknown keyword arguments. Custom email backend subclasses should ensure they have consumed all supported `**kwargs` before forwarding the remainder to superclass init. The base class now issues a deprecation warning for unknown arguments, and it will treat them as errors starting in Django 7.0. See Migrating custom email backends.

- Support for `fail_silently` in the `BaseEmailBackend` is deprecated. A custom email backend that wants to support `fail_silently` should manage its own local attribute, not pass it to the base backend constructor. See Migrating custom email backends.

### Miscellaneous

- Calling `select_related()` with no arguments to select all non-nullable related fields is deprecated. Specify the related fields to fetch instead, or use the `FETCH_PEERS` fetch mode.

- Setting `ModelAdmin.list_select_related` to `True` and returning `True` from `ModelAdmin.get_list_select_related()` are deprecated. Specify the related fields to fetch instead.

- Calling `QuerySet.values_list()` with `flat=True` and no field name is deprecated. Pass an explicit field name, like `values_list("pk", flat=True)`.

- The use of `None` to represent a top-level JSON scalar `null` when querying `JSONField` is now deprecated in favor of the new `JSONNull` expression. At the end of the deprecation period, `None` values compile to SQL `IS NULL` when used as the top-level value. `Key and index lookups` are unaffected by this deprecation.

- The `django.db.models.fields.BLANK_CHOICE_DASH` constant is deprecated in favor of the new constant `django.db.models.fields.BLANK_CHOICE_LABEL`.

- The `USE_BLANK_CHOICE_DASH` transitional setting is deprecated.

- The `SIGNED_COOKIE_LEGACY_SALT_FALLBACK` transitional setting is deprecated.

- The undocumented `get_placeholder` method of `Field` is deprecated in favor of the newly introduced `get_placeholder_sql` method, which has the same input signature but is expected to return a two-elements tuple composed of an SQL format string and a tuple of associated parameters. This method should now expect to be provided expressions meant to be compiled via the provided `compiler` argument.

- The `quote_name_unless_alias()` method of `SQLCompiler`, the type of object passed as the `compiler` argument to the `as_sql()` method of expressions, is deprecated in favor of the newly introduced `quote_name()` method.

- The `email_backend` argument of `log.AdminEmailHandler` is deprecated in favor of the newly introduced `using` argument.

- The `BitAnd`, `BitOr`, and `BitXor` classes in `django.contrib.postgres.aggregates` are deprecated in favor of the generally available `BitAnd`, `BitOr`, and `BitXor` classes.

- Support for double-dot variable lookups, like `{{ book..title }}`, is deprecated. This syntax maps to a lookup of the empty string, which is normally a mistake.

- The default value of the `algorithm` argument for `django.utils.crypto.salted_hmac()` and `django.core.signing.base64_hmac()` is deprecated and will change from `"sha1"` to `"sha256"` in Django 7.0. Pass an explicit `algorithm` to silence the deprecation warning.

- Overriding `ModelAdmin.get_actions()` without the new `action_location` parameter is deprecated.

- Unpacking or indexing the dictionary values of the `ModelAdmin.get_actions()` return value is deprecated. Use `Action` attributes instead.

- Overriding `ModelAdmin.get_action_choices()` without the new `action_location` parameter is deprecated.

- `django.db.transaction.savepoint()` is deprecated in favor of `savepoint_create()`.

## Features removed in 6.1

These features have reached the end of their deprecation cycle and are removed in Django 6.1.

See Features deprecated in 5.2 for details on these changes, including how to remove usage of these features.

- The `all` parameter for the `django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.find()` function is removed in favor of the `find_all` parameter.

- Fallbacks to `request.user` and `request.auser()` when `user` is `None` in `django.contrib.auth.login()` and `django.contrib.auth.alogin()`, respectively, are removed.

- The `ordering` keyword parameter of the PostgreSQL specific aggregation functions `django.contrib.postgres.aggregates.ArrayAgg`, `django.contrib.postgres.aggregates.JSONBAgg`, and `django.contrib.postgres.aggregates.StringAgg` are removed in favor of the `order_by` parameter.

- Support for subclasses of `RemoteUserMiddleware` that override `process_request()` without overriding `aprocess_request()` is removed.