This is how I do my debug, seems a little more compact :) DEBUG = socket.gethostname() != 'your.domain.com' I'd also suggest you add ADMINS = (

This is how I do my debug, seems a little more compact :) DEBUG = socket.gethostname() != 'your.domain.com' I'd also suggest you add ADMINS = ( ('name', 'your-email@domain.com'), ) and # Email-settings SERVER_EMAIL = 'your-email@domain.com' if DEBUG: EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.console.EmailBackend' else: EMAIL_HOST = 'localhost' EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend' So you get notified of any errors via e-mail when debug is off.