ImproperlyConfigured: Requested setting INSTALLED_APPS, but settings are not configured

Most common cause of this is that you're just running python instead of using python manage.py shell, which means you need to manually set the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable so Django knows where to find your settings (manage.py shell does that for you automatically).

It's also possible (but less common) that you have something that's trying to import settings during the process of setting up your settings. To determine if that's the case, look at your settings file for any imports or function calls that might need to access settings (including code in things being imported by your settings file).

try this in your xx.py

from youprojectName.wsgi import *

Run python manage.py shell instead of running python to reach environment shell in your project. Python does not simply recognize django installed apps by default.