Egregoros

@phnt @pernia

#!/bin/bash
to_delete=$1
batch_size=$2
do_delete () {
	n=$1
	out=$(psql -U pleroma -d pleroma -p 5435 -c "delete from activities where id in (select id from activities a where a.inserted_at < '2026-01-01'::date and not local and split_part('data->>object', '/', 3) != 'decayable.ink' limit $n)")
	echo $out
}

i=$to_delete
while [[ $i -gt 0 ]]; do
	a=$(do_delete $batch_size);
	i=$((i-$batch_size))
	deleted=$(($to_delete - $i))
	pct=$(($deleted * 100 / $to_delete))
	echo $(date --iso-8601="seconds") $pct $a
done

you probably need to adjust how psql is called, and obviously the date and the domain. The query is a little ugly in there but here it is formatted a little better:

delete from activities where id in (
  select id from activities a 
  where 
  a.inserted_at < '2026-01-01'::date 
  and not local 
  and split_part(data->>'object', '/', 3) != 'decayable.ink'
  limit 10000
)

The compound select is necessary to do this in batches, which keeps postgres flushing the deletes constantly instead of aggregating everything up and do one biiiiiig delete. As a bonus the script eats the output and gives you progress readouts. It's okay to go a little over the total number of rows you want to delete (you can count(*) the inner select in order to get the exact amount).