Moving Laravel models back to the App/ folder root

In Laravel 8 there was a shift to put models into their own App/Models folder after they were moved to the App/ root in Laravel 5.

However Laravel has always supported the ability to switch back for those who preferred it.

I learned Laravel with version 5, so I prefer models being in the App/ root.

How can I move models back to where they were in Laravel 5-7 and still have Laravel 10+ function correctly?

Solution

The steps for putting models back in the App/ root are very minimal, and Laravel will detect you've done them so make:model will work as expected.

Edit config/auth.php so that the users model entry points to the correct namespace:

 'users' => [
     'driver' => 'eloquent',
     'model' => App\User::class,
 ],

Move your Users.php model (and any other models you have) into the App/ root. Then delete the models directory.
Once they're moved, ensure the namespace is correct for each of the models.
```
 namespace App;
```

That's all you need to do!

To test it's worked correctly, you can ask PHP Artisan to create a new model for you:

    > php artisan make:model Test

You should see Test.php in the App/ root.

Important Note: Laravel Breeze doesn't support this out of the box, but the quick fix is to simply search and replace App\Models\User; with App\User;.

There is one controller (RegisteredUserController.php), one request (ProfileUpdateRequest.php), and six tests that Breeze adds, that will be updated by this search/replace. Very simple.

If you encounter any problems when running the default tests, make sure you run composer dump-autoload after making the above changes.