A bash script that allows you to mass delete blog posts from a Ghost blog via a text file of post ids.

ghost-mass-post-delete.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Admin API key goes here
KEY="this is your admin api key"

# Split the key into ID and SECRET
TMPIFS=$IFS
IFS=':' read ID SECRET <<<"$KEY"
IFS=$TMPIFS

# Prepare header and payload
NOW=$(date +'%s')
FIVE_MINS=$(($NOW + 300))
HEADER="{\"alg\": \"HS256\",\"typ\": \"JWT\", \"kid\": \"$ID\"}"
PAYLOAD="{\"iat\":$NOW,\"exp\":$FIVE_MINS,\"aud\": \"/admin/\"}"

# Helper function for performing base64 URL encoding
base64_url_encode() {
	declare input=${1:-$(</dev/stdin)}
	# Use `tr` to URL encode the output from base64.
	printf '%s' "${input}" | base64 | tr -d '=' | tr '+' '-' | tr '/' '_'
}

# Prepare the token body
header_base64=$(base64_url_encode "$HEADER")
payload_base64=$(base64_url_encode "$PAYLOAD")

header_payload="${header_base64}.${payload_base64}"

# Create the signature
signature=$(printf '%s' "${header_payload}" | openssl dgst -binary -sha256 -mac HMAC -macopt hexkey:$SECRET | base64_url_encode)

# Concat payload and signature into a valid JWT token

TOKEN="${header_payload}.${signature}"

echo $TOKEN

# Mass delete posts

# The name of a file that contains a list of post ids that are to be deleted.
FILENAME="posts.txt"
LINES=$(cat $FILENAME)

for LINE in $LINES; do
	curl -X "DELETE" \
		-H "Authorization: Ghost $TOKEN" \
		-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
		-H "Accept-Version: v5.22" \ # the version of Ghost (only major.minor needed) that your blog uses
		"https://yourdomain.com/ghost/api/admin/posts/$LINE" # your ghost blog
done