Verify your Ghost member list before you send

1. 1
   In Ghost

   Export your members from Ghost

   Before you start

   Only the site owner or an administrator can export data from Ghost Admin.

   1. In Ghost Admin, go to Settings then Advanced then Import/Export.
   2. Open the Export tab and click All data.
   3. Choose to include Members alone.
   4. Click Export.
   5. On Ghost(Pro), download the zip file from the link Ghost emails you, valid for 7 days. On a self-hosted site, it downloads in your browser straight away.
   6. Unzip the file and open the members CSV.

   Tip

   To verify only the members your newsletters reach, filter Members on All newsletters set to Subscribed to at least one, then export them from the "..." icon at the top right.

   Tip

   The file also holds each member's labels and subscription status, among other columns: keep the email column alone in a spreadsheet before moving on.

   SourceGhost's official help center

   • Exporting content and data (opens in a new tab)ghost.org
   • Member management (opens in a new tab)ghost.org
2. 2
   In PricklyMails

   Verify the file in PricklyMails

   1. In the dashboard, open Batches and click New batch.
   2. Drop the file you exported from Ghost: a .csv or .txt with one address per line, no header row and no quotes. A header row would count as an address in the estimate, though it is never billed, and a quoted address would not be verified: the report lists both as malformed. You can also paste the list.
   3. The dashboard counts the addresses and shows the estimated cost in tokens before anything is sent, then you click Submit batch. A batch holds at least 20 addresses, and your plan sets the largest list it can hold.
   4. The list is verified in the background. Once the batch is done, open it and click Download report: you get a CSV with a row for each address of your file, giving its verdict, its reason, its score and its recommendation, with the dashboard's labels.

   Note

   Download the report from the browser that sent the list: that browser is what keeps the addresses, for the 16 most recent batches at most. Our servers, in Germany, only keep a one-way fingerprint of each one.

   What the report says

   Every address gets a recommendation: the action to take. The report writes it with the dashboard's label; the API returns a short form of it.

   Send

   The address is valid, or hosted by a large provider that accepts every address without confirming any. Send as usual.

   Review

   A domain that accepts any address (catch-all), a generic address such as contact@, a full mailbox, or a server that never answered, or refused to. Take a look before you send.

   Remove

   The address does not exist, its domain cannot receive mail, or it is disposable, mistyped or malformed. Take it out.

   Note

   A malformed address is never verified: the batch counts it under "Malformed addresses", and the report still lists it, with the verdict "Invalid", the reason "Malformed address" and the recommendation "Remove", so you take it out of Ghost with the others. A duplicate, counted under "Duplicates removed", appears only once.

   Behind each recommendation sit a verdict (Valid, Risky, Invalid or Not verifiable), a reason and a score from 0 to 100, each in its own column of the report. When a server never answers, the address comes back "Not verifiable" and the checks that got no answer are refunded.

3. 3
   In Ghost

   Bring the result back into Ghost

   Open the report in a spreadsheet and filter the Recommendation column.

   Remove

   They get unsubscribed from all your newsletters, and labeled so you can find them again.

   Ghost unsubscribes an existing member from all newsletters when an import sets subscribed_to_emails to false, so one import of the addresses to remove is enough.

   1. Copy them into a new CSV file, under an email header.
   2. Add a subscribed_to_emails column set to false on every row.
   3. Add a labels column set to a new label, such as to-remove, on every row.
   4. In Ghost Admin, go to Members.
   5. Click the Settings icon at the top right, then Import members.
   6. Upload your CSV file, then click Import members.

   Review

   They deserve a look before your next newsletter.

   Send

   They stay subscribed: nothing to do.

   Warning

   Import only addresses from your report: an address that is not a member yet would be added as a new member, unsubscribed from every newsletter.

   SourceGhost's official help center

   • Import members (opens in a new tab)ghost.org
   • Member management (opens in a new tab)ghost.org

Verify each address before it reaches Ghost

Does your own signup form or sync script create members through Ghost's Admin API, with the Creating a member (opens in a new tab) call? Ask PricklyMails first. If the recommendation is remove, don't create the member.

curl -s https://api.pricklymails.com/api/verify \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer pm_live_9f3a..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "email": "ana.silva@gmail.con" }' \
  | jq '{job_uuid, suggestion}'

{
  "job_uuid": "8f1c2a9e-4b7d-4e2a-9c61-3d5f0b7a2e18",
  "suggestion": "ana.silva@gmail.com"
}

curl -s https://api.pricklymails.com/api/verify/$JOB_UUID \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer pm_live_9f3a..." \
  | jq '.verifications[0] | {status, reason, score, recommendation}'

{
  "status": "invalid",
  "reason": "no_mx_records",
  "score": 0,
  "recommendation": "remove"
}

Frequently asked questions