Migrate Substack zip Export

Converts a Substack zip export and generates a zip file you can import into a Ghost installation.

Install

To install the CLI, which is required for the Usage commands below:

npm install --global @tryghost/migrate

To use this package in your own project:

npm install @tryghost/mg-substack --save

or

yarn add @tryghost/mg-substack

Usage

To run basic Substack migration, the required command is this:

migrate substack --pathToZip /path/to/my-export.zip --url https://example.com

A more complex command for a Substack migration looks like this:

migrate substack --pathToZip /path/to/my-export.zip --url https://example.com --email '[email protected]' --drafts false

migrate substack --pathToZip /path/to/my-export.zip --url https://example.com --posts false --pages false --podcasts false --threads true

It's possible to pass more options, in order to achieve a better migration file for Ghost:

• --pathToZip (required)
  • Path to a zip file
  • string - default: null
• --url (required)
  • Site URL
  • string - default: null
• -V --verbose
  • Show verbose output
  • bool - default: false
• --zip
  • Create a zip file
  • bool - default: true
• -s --scrape
  • Configure scraping tasks
  • string - default: all
  • Choices: all, web, assets, none
    • all: Scrape web metadata and download assets
    • web: Only scrape metadata from web pages
    • assets: Only download assets (images, media, files)
    • none: Skip all scraping tasks
• -e --email
  • Provide an email domain for users e.g. [email protected] (Is ignored if --useMetaAuthor is provided)
  • bool/string - default: false
• --addTag
  • string - default: null
  • Provide a tag name which should be added to every post in this migration (Wrap in single quotes if tag name has spaces 'Like This')
• --addPlatformTag
  • Add #substack tag to migrated content
  • bool - default: true
• --addTypeTag
  • Add #substack-{type} tag to migrated content (post, podcast, etc)
  • bool - default: true
• --addAccessTag
  • Add #substack-{access} tag to migrated content (public, paid, etc)
  • bool - default: true
• --posts
  • Import posts
  • bool - default: true
• --drafts
  • Import draft posts
  • bool - default: true
• --pages
  • Import pages
  • bool - default: true
• --podcasts
  • Import podcasts
  • bool - default: true
• --threads
  • Import threads
  • bool - default: false
• --subscribeLink
  • Provide a path that existing /subscribe anchors will link to e.g. /join-us or #/portal/signup (# characters need to be escaped with a \)
  • string - default: #/portal/signup
• --noSubscribeButtons
  • Remove subscribe buttons and links from content (no replacement link)
  • bool - default: false
• --comments
  • Keep comment buttons
  • bool - default: true
• --commentLink
  • Provide a path that existing /comments anchors will link to e.g. #ghost-comments-root (# characters need to be escaped with a \)
  • string - default: #ghost-comments-root
• --useMetaImage
  • Use og:image value as the feature image
  • bool - default: true
• --useFirstImage
  • Use the first image in content as the feature image (useMetaImage takes priority)
  • bool - default: true
• --useMetaAuthor
  • Use the author field from ld+json (useful for posts with multiple authors)
  • bool - default: true
• --postsBefore
  • Only migrate posts before and including a given date e.g. 'March 20 2018'
  • string - default: null
• --postsAfter
  • Only migrate posts after and including a given date e.g. 'August 16 2023'
  • string - default: null
• --fallBackHTMLCard
  • Fall back to convert to HTMLCard, if standard Mobiledoc convert fails
  • bool - default: true
• --cache
  • Persist local cache after migration is complete (Only if --zip is true)
  • bool - default: true

Note: You can combine --postsBefore and --postsAfter to migrate posts between 2 dates.

Develop

This is a mono repository, managed with lerna.

Follow the instructions for the top-level repo.

1. git clone this repo & cd into it as usual
2. Run yarn to install top-level dependencies.

Run

To run a local development copy, cd into this directory, and use yarn dev instead of migrate like so:

yarn dev substack <pathToZip>

Test

• yarn lint run just eslint
• yarn test run lint and tests

Copyright & License

Copyright (c) 2013-2026 Ghost Foundation - Released under the MIT license.