The model migrations are certainly a great feature of the Django framework. But, when it comes down to running tests, it really slows down the process. Especially if your migration history is big. This is a simple tip to speed up your tests.

I like to create a separate settings file for this tweaks.

tests_settings.py

from settings import *

# Custom settings goes here

And then to run the tests:

python manage.py test --settings=myproject.tests_settings --verbosity=1

Django >= 1.9

One option is using the MIGRATION_MODULES setting, which is intended to define a custom name for an app’s migration module. If you set None instead, Django will ignore the migration module.

from settings import *

MIGRATION_MODULES = {
    'auth': None,
    'contenttypes': None,
    'default': None,
    'sessions': None,

    'core': None,
    'profiles': None,
    'snippets': None,
    'scaffold_templates': None,
}

Django < 1.9

This is a possible solution if you are using a version prior to 1.9. Actually, I still prefer to use it nowadays. Because I don’t need to set each app.

from settings import *

class DisableMigrations(object):
    def __contains__(self, item):
        return True

    def __getitem__(self, item):
        return 'notmigrations'

MIGRATION_MODULES = DisableMigrations()

Older Django Versions (using South)

Hold tight:

SOUTH_TESTS_MIGRATE = False

Damn! It could even live inside the production settings.py.