Ghost - Pesky Newsletters

So, you have rebuilt your servers or restored data and now you need to clean up the archived newsletters.

The following should be considered:

• You cannot do this with Ghost Pro hosting to my knowledge
• It is not supported by ghost.org and they don't recommend it.
• However, if you self-host and decide to cloud host you might need to do this, or archive newsletters depending on the tier you choose.
• Maintenance

🔑 Access Ghost DB via Portainer

Log into Portainer

• Open your Portainer dashboard in the browser.
• Navigate to the stack or service where Ghost is deployed.

Identify the Database Container

• Ghost usually runs with a MySQL (or MariaDB) container alongside the Ghost app.
• In Portainer, look for a container named something like ghost-db, mysql, or mariadb.

Open the Console

• Select the database container.
• Use the “Console” or “Exec Console” option in Portainer.
• Choose /bin/bash or /bin/sh as the shell.

Back up the ghost database

mysqldump -u <db_user> -p <db_name> > ghost-backup.sql

Connect to MySQL inside the container

mysql -u <db_user> -p <db_name>;

• Enter the password (stored in your stack’s environment variables or secrets).

Inspect the newsletters table

USE <db_name>;
SELECT id, name, status FROM newsletters WHERE status='archived';

Delete the archived newsletters themselves

DELETE FROM newsletters WHERE status='archived';

Verify the clean up

SELECT id, name, status FROM newsletters;

Optimize the database (optional}

• Exit the MySQL but stay in bash

mysqlcheck -u <db_root> -p --auto-repair --optimize --all-databases

Exit and restart Ghost

• Exit the console.
• Restart the Ghost app container to ensure changes are reflected.

⚠️ Important Notes

• Always backup the database before making changes.
• Ghost migrations assume at least one newsletter exists — don’t delete the last one.
• If you’re running multiple Ghost stacks, repeat the process per stack.

Tested and working

#enoughsaid