Detect mobile devices with Django and Python 3

Question

I am struggling to find an easy way to detect if the request comes from a mobile device in my Django views.

I am trying to implement something like this:

#views.py

def myfunction(request):

    ...
    if request.mobile:
        is_mobile = True
    else:
        is_mobile = False

    context = {
        ... ,
        'is_mobile': is_mobile,
    }
    return render(request, 'mytemplate.html', context)

And in mytemplate.html:

{% if is_mobile %}    
    show something
{% else %}
    show something else
{% endif %}

Everywhere I checked (for instance here or here), minidetector is recommended. I have installed different versions: pip install minidetector, pip install minidetector2, as well as directly a couple of github repositories, but none of them are compatible with Python 3.

So here my question: Is there any version/fork of minidetector that is compatible with Python 3? If not, what are the alternatives?

You have linked to an irrelevent AttributeError question. Post your stacktrace — e4c5, Feb 16 '17 at 12:03
The link aimed to show that minidetector is not compatible with Python 3. I have removed it and rephrased that part, to avoid any confusion about the question itself. — J0ANMM, Feb 16 '17 at 12:07
I advice to check [How to detect browser type in Django?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2669294/how-to-detect-browser-type-in-django?utm_medium=organic&utm_source=google_rich_qa&utm_campaign=google_rich_qa) — Qback, Apr 16 '18 at 00:43

score 44 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 16 '17 at 15:57

Django User Agents package is compatible with Python 3.

Follow the installation instructions in the link provided above and then you can use it as follows:

def my_view(request):

    # Let's assume that the visitor uses an iPhone...
    request.user_agent.is_mobile # returns True
    request.user_agent.is_tablet # returns False
    request.user_agent.is_touch_capable # returns True
    request.user_agent.is_pc # returns False
    request.user_agent.is_bot # returns False

    # Accessing user agent's browser attributes
    request.user_agent.browser  # returns Browser(family=u'Mobile Safari', version=(5, 1), version_string='5.1')
    request.user_agent.browser.family  # returns 'Mobile Safari'
    request.user_agent.browser.version  # returns (5, 1)
    request.user_agent.browser.version_string   # returns '5.1'

    # Operating System properties
    request.user_agent.os  # returns OperatingSystem(family=u'iOS', version=(5, 1), version_string='5.1')
    request.user_agent.os.family  # returns 'iOS'
    request.user_agent.os.version  # returns (5, 1)
    request.user_agent.os.version_string  # returns '5.1'

    # Device properties
    request.user_agent.device  # returns Device(family='iPhone')
    request.user_agent.device.family  # returns 'iPhone'

The usage in template is as follows:

{% if request.user_agent.is_mobile %}
    Do stuff here...
{% endif %}

However, note that the middleware class has changed in Django 1.10. So if you are using Django 1.10 +, you will have to modify the middleware class definition in this Package as given in this GitHub issue tracker page.

Last check-in was June 2019, for Django 2.2. :/ – dfrankow Oct 09 '21 at 15:28 — dfrankow, Oct 09 '21 at 15:28

J0ANMM · Answer 2 · 2017-07-21T10:45:42.063

I found an alternative way, starting from this answer.

By adding an additional function into views.py:

import re

def mobile(request):
"""Return True if the request comes from a mobile device."""

    MOBILE_AGENT_RE=re.compile(r".*(iphone|mobile|androidtouch)",re.IGNORECASE)

    if MOBILE_AGENT_RE.match(request.META['HTTP_USER_AGENT']):
        return True
    else:
        return False


def myfunction(request):

    ...
    if mobile(request):
        is_mobile = True
    else:
        is_mobile = False

    context = {
        ... ,
        'is_mobile': is_mobile,
    }
    return render(request, 'mytemplate.html', context)

I prefer this to the other answer; no additional overhead as a result of the extra middleware. — ImportError, Aug 31 '21 at 22:19

Detect mobile devices with Django and Python 3

2 Answers2

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