Changelog

4.0.1 (2026-05-15)

Small quality of life bugfix release.

  • The temp_private_root test helper is now more versatile for different situations.

    • By default, it will reset the in-memory storage between tests when used as a class decorator, however you can opt out of this behaviour with the reset_storage=False parameter. This can be useful when setting up test data with private file fields in the setUpTestData class method.

    • By default, it injects a custom SENDFILE_BACKEND to serve files from the in-memory storage. You can opt-out of this if you have other/outer @override_settings decorators that override this setting.

  • Fixed broken ReadTheDocs configuration.

4.0.0 (2026-05-14)

Maintenance and refactor release.

We now use Django’s built-in STORAGES setting, requiring breaking changes.

Breaking changes πŸ’₯

  • Dropped support for Django 4.2.

  • Dropped support for Python 3.11 and older.

  • Reworked library to use settings.STORAGES. Upgrading is mostly a boilerplate settings annoyance. For the least friction:

      PRIVATE_MEDIA_ROOT = "/path/to/private-media/"
  PRIVATE_MEDIA_URL = "/private_media/"
  SENDFILE_ROOT = PRIVATE_MEDIA_ROOT
  SENDFILE_URL = PRIVATE_MEDIA_URL
+ STORAGES = {
+     "default": {
+         "BACKEND": "django.core.files.storage.FileSystemStorage",
+     },
+     "staticfiles": {
+         "BACKEND": "django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.StaticFilesStorage",
+     },
+     "privates": {
+         "BACKEND": "django.core.files.storage.FileSystemStorage",
+         "OPTIONS": {
+             "location": PRIVATE_MEDIA_ROOT,
+             "base_url": PRIVATE_MEDIA_URL,
+         },
+     },
+ }

    Note

    The PRIVATE_MEDIA_* settings are all gone - you can restructure this code however you like.

New features

  • Confirmed support for Django 6.0 and Python 3.14.

  • Improved type annotations.

  • [#18] Support configuration via the STORAGES setting.

  • [#18] Added system checks that report broken configuration.

Bugfixes

  • [#8] The privates.test.temp_private_root testing helper now sets up an in-memory storage that should no longer pollute the file system.

Project maintenance

  • Hardened the CI workflows to reduce supply chain attack risks.

  • CI now runs on a weekly basis to catch upstream changes early.

3.1.1 (2025-07-09)

Bugfix release.

  • [#15] Fixed 3.0.0 regression (because of #10) where it was no longer possible to pickle model instances that are exposed with the PrivateMediaMixin in the admin.

3.1.0 (2025-04-02)

Small feature release to confirm support for Django 5.2

  • Confirmed support for Django 5.2

  • Confirmed support for Python 3.13

  • Switched out black and isort for ruff

  • Replaced legacy typing syntax with 3.10+ compatible syntax.

3.0.0 (2025-02-26)

Maintenance and bugfix release

Breaking changes πŸ’₯

  • Dropped support for Python 3.8 and 3.9

  • Dropped support for Django 3.2 and 4.1

Other changes

  • [#10] Fixed incorrect donwload link being shown for readonly private media fields in the admin.

  • Confirmed support for Python 3.11 and 3.12.

  • The package is now published via Github Trusted Publishers.

2.0.0.post1 (2024-03-01)

  • Added mypy type checking

  • Updated type annotations to align with django-stubs for downstream projects/packages

  • Confirmed Django 4.2 support

2.0.0 (2023-05-05)

Periodic version compatibility release.

Breaking changes πŸ’₯

  • Dropped support for Python 3.7

  • Dropped support for Django 4.0

The library likely still works on those versions, but they are no longer tested.

Other changes

  • Confirmed support for Python 3.11

  • Confirmed support for Django 4.2

1.5.0 (2023-01-03)

Feature release

  • Added privates.admin.PrivateMediaMixin.private_media_no_download_fields so admin classes can mark fields for which no file download URL/view should be generated

  • Specifying privates.admin.PrivateMediaMixin.private_media_fields is now optional, available private media fields are now automatically discovered.

1.4.0 (2022-09-06)

Periodic maintenance release

  • Confirmed support for Django 4.0 and 4.1

  • Dropped support for Django 2.2

  • Dropped support for Python 3.5 and 3.6

  • Updated CI infrastructure

  • Code base is now formatted with black

  • Codebase now exposes type hints (incomplete!)

1.3.0 (2021-12-17)

Align supported version with Django LTS. The CI-tested versions are now Django 2.2 and 3.2.

Django 3.0 and 3.1 probably also still work, but these are end of life and not officially supported.

  • Dropped Django 1.11 support

  • Added Python 3.9 support

  • Added Python 3.10 support

  • Migrated from Travis CI to Github Action

1.2.2 (2021-07-23)

Fixed deprecation message about django.conf.urls (thanks @GerjonM).

Supported Django versions are now 1.11, 2.2 and 3.2.

1.2.0 (2020-03-16)

Maintenance update, some small features and cleanup

  • Fixed packaging so that testapp/ and tests/ are no longer packaged

  • Dropped support for Django 2.0 and 2.1, added support for Django 3.0

  • Added support for Python 3.8

  • Depends on django-sendfile2 > 0.5, which went through a package rename from sendfile to django_sendfile.

  • Improved hooks to customize representations

1.1.0 (2019-11-21)

  • Added privates.fields.PrivateMediaImageField - thanks to @GerjonM

  • Support dropped for Django 2.0 (EOL)

  • Support dropped for Python 3.4 (EOL)

Most likely this will still work on Python 3.4 and Django 2.0, however, it’s not explicitly listed in the CI build anymore, so use on your own risk.