Override default queryset in Django admin

Question

One of my models has a deleted flag, which is used to hide objects globally:

class NondeletedManager(models.Manager):
    \"\"\"Returns only objects which ha         


        

Answer 1

You can do this with a Django proxy model.

# models.py
class UnfilteredConversation(Conversation):
    class Meta:
        proxy = True

    # this will be the 'default manager' used in the Admin, and elsewhere
    objects = models.Manager() 

# admin.py
@admin.register(UnfilteredConversation)
class UnfilteredConversationAdmin(Conversation):
    # regular ModelAdmin stuff here
    ...

Or, if you have an existing ModelAdmin class you want to re-use:

admin.site.register(UnfilteredConversation, ConversationAdmin)

This approach avoids issues that can arise with overriding the default manager on the original Conversation model - because the default manager is also used in ManyToMany relationships and reverse ForeignKey relationships.