How to delete old profile picture when upload a new one - Django

Question

I have a user profile page with profile picture based on ImageField in my model. When I submit the form and upload a new image the original image file isn't deleted from /static/images/. How can I delete the old profile picture from images folder after new picture was uploaded?

Answer 1

You can use pre_save signal to delete old file before saving the new file

from django.db.models.signals import pre_save
import os

@receiver(pre_save, sender=ImageModel)
def delete_old_file(sender, instance, **kwargs):
    # on creation, signal callback won't be triggered 
    if instance._state.adding and not istance.pk:
        return False
    
    try:
        old_file = sender.objects.get(pk=instance.pk).file
    except sender.DoesNotExist:
        return False
    
    # comparing the new file with the old one
    file = instance.file
    if not old_file == file:
        if os.path.isfile(old_file.path):
            os.remove(old_file.path)