Admin Search and Filters

Adding a Search Box

Setting search_fields on a ModelAdmin puts a search box above the list page that performs a case-insensitive partial match against every listed field.

Example: Adding a Search Box

Typing into the search box now matches against Book.title and the related Author's name field.

from django.contrib import admin
from .models import Book

@admin.register(Book)
class BookAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    search_fields = ('title', 'author__name')

Adding Filter Sidebar Options

list_filter adds a sidebar of clickable filters. It works best on fields with a small, fixed set of values like booleans, choices, or dates.

Example: Adding Filter Sidebar Options

Adds sidebar filters for is_published (True/False) and published_date (by year/month/day).

class BookAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_filter = ('is_published', 'published_date')

Combining Search and Filters

search_fields and list_filter work together and independently -- a search query and an active filter both narrow the same list at once.

Warning: list_filter on a field with many unique values (like a free-text title) makes the sidebar impractically long; prefer search_fields for those.

Example: Combining Search and Filters

Gives Book a searchable, filterable admin list in a single ModelAdmin class.

class BookAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    list_display = ('title', 'author', 'is_published')
    search_fields = ('title',)
    list_filter = ('is_published',)