How to override and extend basic Django admin templates?

Question

How do I override an admin template (e.g. admin/index.html) while at the same time extending it (see https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/admin/#overriding-vs-r

Answer 1

Update:

Read the Docs for your version of Django. e.g.

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/ref/contrib/admin/#admin-overriding-templates https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.0/ref/contrib/admin/#admin-overriding-templates https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/ref/contrib/admin/#admin-overriding-templates

Original answer from 2011:

I had the same issue about a year and a half ago and I found a nice template loader on djangosnippets.org that makes this easy. It allows you to extend a template in a specific app, giving you the ability to create your own admin/index.html that extends the admin/index.html template from the admin app. Like this:

{% extends "admin:admin/index.html" %}

{% block sidebar %}
    {{block.super}}
    

        
Extra links
        My extra link
    
{% endblock %}

I've given a full example on how to use this template loader in a blog post on my website.