from django.contrib.admin.filterspecs import FilterSpec, ChoicesFilterSpec from django.utils.encoding import smart_unicode from django.db.models import Count class CustomChoiceFilterSpec(ChoicesFilterSpec): def __init__(self, f, request, params, model, model_admin): super(CustomChoiceFilterSpec, self).__init__(f, request, params, model, model_admin) self.lookup_kwarg = '%s__id__exact' % f.name # Change this to match the search of your object self.lookup_val = request.GET.get(self.lookup_kwarg, None) self.objects = model.objects.all() self.foreign_key = f.name self.foreign_key_count = {} for item in model.objects.values(f.name).annotate(count=Count('pk')): self.foreign_key_count[item[f.name]] = item['count'] def choices(self, cl): yield {'selected': self.lookup_val is None, 'query_string': cl.get_query_string({}, [self.lookup_kwarg]), 'display': ('All')} items = set([getattr(i, self.foreign_key) for i in self.objects]) for k in items: if k is None: kk = None else: kk = k.id yield {'selected': smart_unicode(k) == self.lookup_val, 'query_string': cl.get_query_string({self.lookup_kwarg: kk}), # Change .id to match what you are searching for 'display': '%s (%s)' % (k, self.foreign_key_count[kk])} FilterSpec.filter_specs.insert(0, (lambda f: getattr(f, 'compact_filter', False), CustomChoiceFilterSpec))