Cannot use import statement outside a module Electron React Typescript

Question

How to solve the famous issue "Cannot use import statement outside a module" in an Electron-React-Typescript app?

//const { app, BrowserWindow } = require('electron');
import { app, BrowserWindow } from 'electron';

Error :

import { app, BrowserWindow } from 'electron';
^^^^^^
SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module

in package.json I added :

"type": "module",

devDependencies in package.json :

"@types/node": "^14.14.28",
"@types/react": "^17.0.2",
"electron": "^11.2.3",
"typescript": "^4.1.5",
"webpack": "^5.21.2"

tsconfig.json :

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "ES2018",
    "module": "CommonJS",
    "lib": ["dom", "esnext"],
    "outDir": "dist",
    "declaration": true,
    "declarationMap": true,
    "noEmit": true,
    "jsx": "react",
    "strict": true,
    "pretty": true,
    "sourceMap": true,
    "skipLibCheck": true,
    "noImplicitAny": false,
    "noImplicitThis": false,
    /* Additional Checks */
    "noUnusedLocals": true,
    "noUnusedParameters": true,
    "noImplicitReturns": true,
    "noFallthroughCasesInSwitch": true,
    /* Module Resolution Options */
    "moduleResolution": "node",
    "esModuleInterop": true,
    "allowSyntheticDefaultImports": true,
    "resolveJsonModule": true,
    "allowJs": true
  },
  "include": ["src/**/*"],
  "exclude": [
    "src/index.js",
    "dist",
  ]
}

I also added in babel.config.json 's plugins :

["@babel/plugin-transform-modules-commonjs", {
  "allowTopLevelThis": true
}],

and in package.json :

"scripts": {
   "babel": "babel ./src/**/* -d dist",
   "start": "yarn run babel && electron .",

electron : 11.2.3
typescript : 4.1.5
node: v14.5.0
O.S. : Ubuntu 18.04.4 Desktop

What do I have to add / modify in order to be able to use "import" ?

Raphael10 Raphael10 · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-15T17:04:33

Thanks to and Electron's expert I discovered two errors which caused that issue:

I modified the main's path in package.json

"main": "./src/main/main.ts" ---> "main": "./dist/main/main.js"

because electron can understand only the compiled file
I removed in package.js on

"type": "module"

which otherwise wuold require to change .js to .cjs files

Cannot use import statement outside a module Electron React Typescript

1 Answers