Django admin: Use select2 (autocomplete_fields) everywhere. Implicit is better than explicit. Because it is brief and easy. In addition gives improved context in get_search_results so you can apply filters based on current and form values. Install Install the last stable release django-admin-autocomplete-all Add into INSTALLED_APPS: 'autocomplete_all', Usage (more context for server-side filters) Read in our Documentation (readthedocs) or in autocomplete_all/js/autocomplete_params.js. Usage (add all foreign keys to autocomplete_fields) In your admin.py import ModelAdmin, StackedInline and/or TabularInline 'from autocomplete_all' instead of 'from admin'. import autocomplete_all class MyModelAdmin(autocomplete_all.ModelAdmin): # .... In such ModelAdmin class no other settings are required, but you can: autocomplete_except = [<field1>, ..] # disable adding autocomplete_fields for listed fields autocomplete_all = False # disable automatic adding of autocomplete_fields at all At the first start you will probably receive a lot of django errors/warnings. They mean that you don't have registered the related ModelAdmin classes or that such class lacks search_fields=.. To solve these messages you can register the required ModelAdmin classes (make sure they have search_fields=..). See ModelAdmin.autocomplete_fields in Django docs for details. Alternatively you can disable the functionality in particular case using autocomplete_exclude=[..]. This is useful if you have models not fully used yet (ie. empty) and you want prevent them to be accessible in admin interface. Example: In the application models you have ForeignKey(s) related into User model (outside of this application). To avoid error messages while starting your Django project add: from django.contrib.auth.models import User from django.contrib.auth.admin import UserAdmin # must define search_fields=.. (which is true in this case) admin.site.register(User, UserAdmin)