Create Django REST API with Image Upload | User Insert, Update, Delete | Full Tutorial

Introduction

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to build a complete Django REST API that allows you to create users with an image upload (profile picture). You’ll learn how to set up a Django project, create an app, connect to a MySQL database, create serializers and viewsets, and finally expose REST endpoints to create, retrieve, update, and delete user profiles.

Key Features

• User creation with first name, last name, email, and password
• Secure password hashing
• Image upload for profile pictures
• REST API using Django REST Framework (DRF)
• MySQL integration

Project Structure

Once your project is set up, your structure will look like this:

crudwithimage/
├── db.sqlite3 (optional)
├── manage.py
├── accounts/
│   ├── admin.py
│   ├── apps.py
│   ├── models.py
│   ├── serializers.py
│   ├── tests.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   ├── views.py
│   ├── __init__.py
│   └── migrations/
│       └── __init__.py
├── crudwithimage/
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   ├── wsgi.py
│   └── asgi.py
└── media/
    └── profile_images/
        └── [uploaded images]
  

Step 1: Install Django and DRF

pip install django djangorestframework mysqlclient pillow
  

Step 2: Create Django Project and App

django-admin startproject crudwithimage
cd crudwithimage
python manage.py startapp accounts
  

Step 3: Configure Installed Apps

In crudwithimage/settings.py, add:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    "rest_framework",
    "accounts",
]
  

Step 4: Set Up Media and MySQL

In settings.py:

import os
from pathlib import Path

BASE_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent

MEDIA_URL = "/media/"
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "media")

DATABASES = {
    "default": {
        "ENGINE": "django.db.backends.mysql",
        "NAME": "djnagocrudimage",
        "USER": "myadmin",
        "PASSWORD": "Angular13#@123",
        "HOST": "localhost",
        "PORT": "3306",
    }
}
  

Step 5: Define the User Model

In accounts/models.py:

from django.db import models
from django.contrib.auth.hashers import make_password

class UserProfile(models.Model):
    first_name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    last_name = models.CharField(max_length=100)
    email = models.EmailField(unique=True)
    password = models.CharField(max_length=128)
    image = models.ImageField(upload_to="profile_images/")

    def save(self, *args, **kwargs):
        if not self.pk:
            self.password = make_password(self.password)
        super(UserProfile, self).save(*args, **kwargs)

    def __str__(self):
        return self.email
  

Step 6: Make and Apply Migrations

python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate
  

Step 7: Create Serializer

In accounts/serializers.py:

from rest_framework import serializers
from .models import UserProfile

class UserProfileSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
    class Meta:
        model = UserProfile
        fields = ["id", "first_name", "last_name", "email", "password", "image"]
        extra_kwargs = {
            "password": {"write_only": True}
        }
  

Step 8: Create ViewSet

In accounts/views.py:

from rest_framework import viewsets
from .models import UserProfile
from .serializers import UserProfileSerializer

class UserProfileViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    queryset = UserProfile.objects.all()
    serializer_class = UserProfileSerializer
  

Step 9: Register Routes

In accounts/urls.py:

from django.urls import path, include
from rest_framework.routers import DefaultRouter
from .views import UserProfileViewSet

router = DefaultRouter()
router.register(r'users', UserProfileViewSet)

urlpatterns = [
    path("", include(router.urls)),
]
  

Step 10: Include in Main URLs

In crudwithimage/urls.py:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include
from django.conf import settings
from django.conf.urls.static import static

urlpatterns = [
    path("admin/", admin.site.urls),
    path("api/", include("accounts.urls")),
]

if settings.DEBUG:
    urlpatterns += static(settings.MEDIA_URL, document_root=settings.MEDIA_ROOT)
  

Step 11: Test Your API

Run the server:

python manage.py runserver
  

Visit http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/users/ in your browser or use Postman.

Sample POST Request (Create User)

POST /api/users/
Content-Type: multipart/form-data

{
  "first_name": "John",
  "last_name": "Doe",
  "email": "john@example.com",
  "password": "secure123",
  "image": [upload file]
}
  

Conclusion

You’ve successfully created a Django REST API that supports user registration and image upload. You used Django REST Framework, MySQL, and Pillow for image handling. This is a solid foundation you can expand on — for example, adding JWT auth, image validation, or deploying to production.

What’s Next?

• Add authentication (JWT with djangorestframework-simplejwt)
• Integrate file storage services like AWS S3 or Cloudinary
• Use Django signals to send welcome emails on user creation
• Build a React frontend for the API