Upload Images to Cloudinary from Django Application

Posted by Hayri Cicek on September 13, 2020

In this tutorial, we will learn how to upload images to Cloudinary from a Django application.

Sample Project


$ mkdir upload-to-cloudinary && cd upload-to-cloudinary
$ pipenv install django
$ pipenv shell
$ django-admin startproject config .
$ python manage.py startapp uploads

Open the models.py in uploads applications and make it look like the following:


from django.db import models


class Upload(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    image = models.ImageField(upload_to='images/')

    def __str__(self):
        return self.title

Open the settings.py and install our new application.


INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'uploads.apps.UploadsConfig',
]

To be able to use ImageField, we have to install Pillow.


$ pipenv install Pillow

Now we have to make a migration, type the following command in the terminal:


$ python manage.py makemigrations

If you get the following error:


TypeError: argument of type 'PosixPath' is not iterable

Then you have to convert the path to be a string:


DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
        'NAME': str(BASE_DIR / 'db.sqlite3'),
    }
}

Now run the migrate command:


$ python manage.py migrate

We have to create a superuser to be able to use the admin.
Type the following command to create a superuser:


$ python manage.py createsuperuser

Now we have a superuser and will be able to log into the admin.
Run the development server:


$ python manage.py runserver

Open the browser and go to http://localhost:8000/admin

There was not much here, if you open uploads application, you can see that there is a file called admin.py, and this is where we can tell Django which models we want to be shown in the admin.
Every application will have admin.py file.
Now open admin.py and make it look like this:


from django.contrib import admin

from .models import Upload


admin.site.register(Upload)

Now when you refresh the admin page, you will see that our Upload model appears.
Try uploading a file, if everything works then you should have a new folder called images and your uploaded image inside.

Cloudinary
Create an account at https://cloudinary.com/
Next install the cloudinary dependencies:


$ pipenv install cloudinary dj3-cloudinary-storage

Open settings.py and make the following changes:


INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'cloudinary',
]

CLOUDINARY_STORAGE = {
    'CLOUD_NAME': 'YOUR CLOUDINARY CLOUD NAME',
    'API_KEY': 'YUOR CLOUDINARY API KEY',
    'API_SECRET': 'YOUR CLOUDINARY API SECRET KEY',
}

DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE = 'cloudinary_storage.storage.MediaCloudinaryStorage'

Now run python manage.py migrate to install cloudinary app.
Try upload a new image, and if everything works then you have successfully stored your new image on Cloudinary.
You can verify that your new image is uploaded by going to https://cloudinary.com/ -> Media Library -> images.

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Upload Images to Cloudinary from Django Application

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