Question: I have a running Django blog with sqlite3 db at my local machine. What I want is to  convert sqlite3 db to mysql db change Django settings.py file to serve MySQL db  Before I ran into the first step, I jumped into the second first. I followed this web page (on MacOS). I created databases called djangolocaldb on root user and have those infos in /etc/mysql/my.cnf like this: # /etc/mysql/my.cnf [client] database=djangolocaldb user=root password=ROOTPASSWORD default-character-set=utf8  Of course I created db, but not table within it. mysql> show databases; +--------------------+ | Database | +--------------------+ | djangolocaldb | | employees | | information_schema | | mydatabase | | mysql | | performance_schema | | sys | +--------------------+ 7 rows in set (0.00 sec)  I changed settings.py like this as the web page suggested. Here's how: # settings.py ... # Database # https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/ref/settings/#databases DATABASES = { 'default': { 'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql', #'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'), 'OPTIONS' : { 'read_default_file': '/etc/mysql/my.cnf', } } } ...  Now, when I run python manage.py runserver with my venv activated, I got a brutal traceback like this(I ran python manage.py migrate first, and the traceback looked almost the same anyway): (.venv) ➜ django-local-blog git:(master) ✗ python manage.py runserver Watching for file changes with StatReloader Exception in thread django-main-thread: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/MySQLdb/__init__.py", line 18, in <module> from . import _mysql ImportError: dlopen(/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/MySQLdb/_mysql.cpython-37m-darwin.so, 2): Library not loaded: @rpath/libmysqlclient.21.dylib Referenced from: /Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/MySQLdb/_mysql.cpython-37m-darwin.so Reason: image not found During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/.pyenv/versions/3.7.6/lib/python3.7/threading.py", line 926, in _bootstrap_inner self.run() File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/.pyenv/versions/3.7.6/lib/python3.7/threading.py", line 870, in run self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs) File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/utils/autoreload.py", line 53, in wrapper fn(*args, **kwargs) File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/runserver.py", line 109, in inner_run autoreload.raise_last_exception() File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/utils/autoreload.py", line 76, in raise_last_exception raise _exception[1] File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 357, in execute autoreload.check_errors(django.setup)() File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/utils/autoreload.py", line 53, in wrapper fn(*args, **kwargs) File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/__init__.py", line 24, in setup apps.populate(settings.INSTALLED_APPS) File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/apps/registry.py", line 114, in populate app_config.import_models() File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/apps/config.py", line 211, in import_models self.models_module = import_module(models_module_name) File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/.pyenv/versions/3.7.6/lib/python3.7/importlib/__init__.py", line 127, in import_module return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level) File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1006, in _gcd_import File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 983, in _find_and_load File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 967, in _find_and_load_unlocked File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 677, in _load_unlocked File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 728, in exec_module File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 219, in _call_with_frames_removed File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/contrib/auth/models.py", line 2, in <module> from django.contrib.auth.base_user import AbstractBaseUser, BaseUserManager File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/contrib/auth/base_user.py", line 47, in <module> class AbstractBaseUser(models.Model): File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/db/models/base.py", line 121, in __new__ new_class.add_to_class('_meta', Options(meta, app_label)) File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/db/models/base.py", line 325, in add_to_class value.contribute_to_class(cls, name) File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/db/models/options.py", line 208, in contribute_to_class self.db_table = truncate_name(self.db_table, connection.ops.max_name_length()) File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/db/__init__.py", line 28, in __getattr__ return getattr(connections[DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS], item) File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/db/utils.py", line 207, in __getitem__ backend = load_backend(db['ENGINE']) File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/db/utils.py", line 111, in load_backend return import_module('%s.base' % backend_name) File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/.pyenv/versions/3.7.6/lib/python3.7/importlib/__init__.py", line 127, in import_module return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level) File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/django/db/backends/mysql/base.py", line 16, in <module> import MySQLdb as Database File "/Users/gwanghyeongim/Documents/py/coreyMS_pj/django-local-blog/.venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/MySQLdb/__init__.py", line 24, in <module> version_info, _mysql.version_info, _mysql.__file__ NameError: name '_mysql' is not defined  So this NameError: name '_mysql' is not defined is the problem. I installed mysqlclient before, changed settings.py, made db in mysql, but none of the steps made it any helpful yet. And I noticed that even I changed my settings.py back to sqlite3, my blog spit the same _mysql not defined error. So I ended up reverting my commit and now I'm back to sqlite3 (at least my blog is running with it). I'm guessing it could be that I didn't convert data first, but I'm not 100% sure of it. Any suggestion?

Answer: So as a full answer: If you use the python package mysqlclient you still need to install the mysql client from Oracle/MySQL. This contains the C-library that the python package uses. To make things more confusing: the python package is in fact written in C for speed increases. To install this library on MacOS: % brew install mysql-client  There's also a pure python package, with a more attractive MIT License, which can be a solution if your company or client does not allow GPL. However, it's not officially supported and some subtle bugs can occur in between releases. YMMV.