Email Login w/ Django

README.md

Login Users with Email

A response to: Django: How to Log Users In With Their Email

There's an easier way than creating a custom user type. All you need to change is the AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS setting!

See the example account app files in this gist!

Thanks!

-- Tom

backends.py

# accounts/backends.py
from django.contrib.auth.backends import ModelBackend
from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model

UserModel = get_user_model()

class AccountModelBackend(ModelBackend):
    """
    Tweaked ModelBackend so that users can be authenticated
    by passing in their email instead of username
    """
    def authenticate(self, request, email=None, password=None, **kwargs):
        if email is None or password is None:
            return
        try:
            user = UserModel._default_manager.get(email=email)
        except UserModel.DoesNotExist:
            # Run the default password hasher once to reduce the timing
            # difference between an existing and a nonexistent user (#20760).
            UserModel().set_password(password)
        else:
            if user.check_password(password) and self.user_can_authenticate(user):
                return user

controllers.py

# accounts/controllers.py
from account.exceptions import InvalidCredentialsException
from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy as _
from django.contrib.auth.models import UserManager
from django.contrib.auth import authenticate, login as contrib_login

def login(email, password, request):
    normalized_email = UserManager.normalize_email(email)
    user = authenticate(email=normalized_email, password=password)
    if not user:
        raise InvalidCredentialsException()
    else:
        contrib_login(request, user)
    return user

exceptions.py

# accounts/exceptions.py
class InvalidCredentialsException(Exception):
    pass

settings.py

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = (
    'account.backends.AccountModelBackend',
)