startapp with manage.py to create app in another directory

You can specify the path to /server/appname directory after appname as the destination i.e. where the Django app directory structure will be created.

From the startapp docs:

startapp <app_label> [destination] # startapp command usage 

Creates a Django app directory structure for the given app name in the current directory or the given destination.

If only the app name is given, the app directory will be created in the current working directory.

If the optional destination is provided, Django will use that existing directory rather than creating a new one

So, you can specify the path to your /server/appname directory as the destination value.

django-admin.py startapp appname [destination] # specify destination

What you need to do?

1. You need to first create a directory appname inside /server.

mkdir /server/appname # create directory from root level

2. Then, run the startapp command to create the app.

django-admin.py startapp appname ./server/appname

I always have my app in an internal folder (the same that Django creates, with the name of the project) following the design of Two Scoops of Django that is similar to what you want to do. When you want to create a new app, you can use, as the previous answer says,

python ../manage.py startapp my_new_app

from within the folder in which you want to create the app. Another thing, even easier that is what I do, is that you can run

django-admin startapp my_new_app

from this inner folder, of apps and it will work.

If you are already in the server directory, then you can run

python ../manage.py startapp appname

And appname will be created in the server directory instead of in the project root.