Command to remove all npm modules globally?

Question

Is there a command to remove all global npm modules? If not, what do you suggest?

Answer 1

The following command removes all global npm modules. Note: this does not work on Windows. For a working Windows version, see Ollie Bennett's Answer.

npm ls -gp --depth=0 | awk -F/ '/node_modules/ && !/\/npm$/ {print $NF}' | xargs npm -g rm

Here is how it works:

• npm ls -gp --depth=0 lists all global top level modules (see the cli documentation for ls)
• awk -F/ '/node_modules/ && !/\/npm$/ {print $NF}' prints all modules that are not actually npm itself (does not end with /npm)
• xargs npm -g rm removes all modules globally that come over the previous pipe

Answer 2

For those using Windows, the easiest way to remove all globally installed npm packages is to delete the contents of:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\npm

You can get there quickly by typing %appdata%/npm in either the explorer, run prompt, or from the start menu.

Answer 3

I tried Kai Sternad's solution but it seemed imperfect to me. There was a lot of special symbols left after the last awk from the deps tree itself.

So, I came up with my own modification of Kai Sternad's solution (with a little help from cashmere's idea):

npm ls -gp --depth=0 | awk -F/node_modules/ '{print $2}' | grep -vE '^(npm|)$' | xargs -r npm -g rm

npm ls -gp --depth=0 lists all globally-installed npm modules in parsable format:

/home/leonid/local/lib
/home/leonid/local/lib/node_modules/bower
/home/leonid/local/lib/node_modules/coffee-script
...

awk -F/node_modules/ '{print $2}' extracts module names from paths, forming the list of all globally-installed modules.

grep -vE '^(npm|)$' removes npm itself and blank lines.

xargs -r npm -g rm calls npm -g rm for each module in the list.

Like Kai Sternad's solution, it'll only work under *nix.

Answer 4

sudo npm list -g --depth=0. | awk -F ' ' '{print $2}' | awk -F '@' '{print $1}'  | sudo xargs npm remove -g

worked for me

• sudo npm list -g --depth=0. lists all top level installed
• awk -F ' ' '{print $2}' gets rid of ├──
• awk -F '@' '{print $1}' gets the part before '@'
• sudo xargs npm remove -g removes the package globally

Answer 5

For those using Powershell:

npm -gp ls --depth=0 | ForEach-Object { Get-Item $_ } | Where { $_.Name -ne 'npm' } | ForEach-Object { npm rm -g $_.Name }

To clear the cache:

npm cache clear

Answer 6

Just switch into your %appdata%/npm directory and run the following...

for package in `ls node_modules`; do npm uninstall $package; done;

EDIT: This command breaks with npm 3.3.6 (Node 5.0). I'm now using the following Bash command, which I've mapped to npm_uninstall_all in my .bashrc file:

npm uninstall `ls -1 node_modules | tr '/\n' ' '`

Added bonus? it's way faster!

https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/10187

How do you uninstall all dependencies listed in package.json (NPM)?

Answer 7

If you would like to remove all the packages that you have installed, you can use the npm -g ls command to find them, and then npm -g rm to remove them.

Answer 8

in windows go to "C:\Users{username}\AppData\Roaming" directory and manually remove npm folder

Answer 9

If you have jq installed, you can go even without grep/awk/sed:

npm ls -g --json --depth=0 |
  jq -r '.dependencies|keys-["npm"]|join("\n")' |
  xargs npm rm -g

On Debian and derived you can install jq with:

sudo apt-get install jq

Answer 10

OS not specified by OP. For Windows, this script can be used to nuke the local and the user's global modules and cache.

I noticed on linux that the global root is truly global to the system instead of the given user. So deleting the global root might not be a good idea for a shared system. That aside, I can port the script to bash if interested.

For Windows, save to a cmd file to run.

@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL EnableDelayedExpansion 
SETLOCAL EnableExtensions

SET /A ecode=0

:: verify
SET /P conf="About to delete all global and local npm modules and clear the npm cache. Continue (y/[n])?
IF /I NOT "%conf%"=="y" (
  ECHO operation aborted
  SET /A ecode=!ecode!+1
  GOTO END
)

:: wipe global and local npm root
FOR %%a IN ("" "-g") DO (

  :: get root path into var
  SET cmd=npm root %%~a
  FOR /f "usebackq tokens=*" %%r IN (`!cmd!`) DO (SET npm_root=%%r)

  :: paranoid
  ECHO validating module path "!npm_root!"
  IF "!npm_root:~-12!"=="node_modules" (
    IF NOT EXIST "!npm_root!" (
      ECHO npm root does not exist "!npm_root!"
    ) ELSE (
      ECHO deleting "!npm_root!" ...
      :: delete
      RMDIR /S /Q "!npm_root!"
    )
  ) ELSE (
      ECHO suspicious npm root, ignoring "!npm_root!"
  )
)

:: clear the cache
ECHO clearing the npm cache ...
call npm cache clean

:: done
ECHO done

:END

ENDLOCAL & EXIT /b %ecode%

Answer 11

For yarn global

nano ~/.config/yarn/global/package.json
<Manually remove all packages from package.json>
yarn global add

Or, if you don't care about what is actually inside package.json

echo {} >  ~/.config/yarn/global/package.json && yarn global add

This should apply to NPM too, but I am not exactly sure where NPM global is stored.

Answer 12

All you done good job. This is combined suggestions in to one line code.

npm rm -g `npm ls -gp --depth=0 | awk -F/node_modules/ '{print $2}' | tr '/\n' ' '`

What is different? Uninstall will be done in single command like: npm rm -g *** *** ***

Answer 13

You can locate your all installed npm packages at the location:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\npm

and delete the content of npm which you want to remove.

If AppData is not showing, it means it is hidden and you can go to View in file explorer and checked the Hidden items then there you can see all the hidden folders.

Answer 14

Use this code to uninstall any package:

npm rm -g <package_name>

Answer 15

Well if you are on windows, and want to remove/uninstall all node_modules then you need to do following steps.

1. Go to windows command prompt
2. Navigate to node_modules directory (Not inside node_modules folder)

3. Type below command and give it for 1-2 minutes it will uninstall all directories inside node_module

    rmdir /s /q node_modules
   

Hope this will help some one on windows

Answer 16

if you have Intellij Webstorm you can use its built-in graphical package manager.

open it as root and create an emtpy project. go to

File > Settings > Language and Frameworks > Node.js and NPM

there you will see all the installed packages. Uninstalling is easy, you can select and deselect any package you want to uninstall, Ctrl+a woks as well.

Answer 17

For a more manual approach that doesn't involve an file explorers, doesn't care where the installation is, is very unlikely to break at a later date, and is 100% cross-platform compatible, and feels a lot safer because of the extra steps, use this one.

• npm ls -g --depth=0
• Copy output
• Paste into favorite code editor (I use vsCode. Great multi-cursor editing)
• Check for any packages you'd like to keep (nodemon, yarn, to name a few) Remove those lines
• Remove every instance of +-- or other line decorators
• Remove all the version information (eg '@2.11.4')
• Put all items on same line, space separated
• Add npm uninstall -g to beginning of that one line.
  • Mine looks like npm uninstall -g @angular/cli @vue/cli express-generator jest mocha typescript bindings nan nodemon yarn, but I didn't install many packages globally on this machine.
• Copy line
• Paste in terminal, hit enter if not already added from the copy/paste
• Look for any errors in the terminal.
• Check npm ls -g to make sure it's complete. If something got reinstalled, rinse and repeat

The other cli-only approaches are great for computer administrators doing something for 100 near-identical computers at once from the same ssh, or maybe a Puppet thing. But if you're only doing this once, or even 5 times over the course of a year, this is much easier.

Answer 18

npm ls -gp | awk -F/ '/node_modules/&&!/node_modules.*node_modules/&&!/npm/{print $NF}' | xargs npm rm -g

Answer 19

Since this is the top answer in search I'm posting this here as it was the solution I used in the past to clean the computer switching laptops.

cd ~/Documents # or where you keep your projects
find . -name "node_modules" -exec rm -rf '{}' +

source: https://winsmarts.com/delete-all-node-modules-folders-recursively-on-windows-edcc9a9c079e

Answer 20

Here is a more elegant solution that I tried where I let npm do all the work for me.

# On Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon
# First navigate to where your global packages are installed.

$ npm root # returns /where/your/node_modules/folder/is
$ cd /where/your/node_modules/folder/is # i.e for me it was cd /home/user/.npm-packages/lib/node_modules

Then if you do npm uninstall or npm remove these modules will be treated as if they were normal dependencies of a project. It even generates a package-lock.json file when it is done:

$ npm remove <package-name> # you may need sudo if it was installed using sudo  

Answer 21

If you have have MSYS for Windows:

rm -rf ${APPDATA//\\/\/}/npm

Answer 22

The npm README.md states:

If you would like to remove all the packages that you have installed, then you can use the npm ls command to find them, and then npm rm to remove them.

To remove cruft left behind by npm 0.x, you can use the included clean-old.sh script file. You can run it conveniently like this:

   npm explore npm -g -- sh scripts/clean-old.sh

Answer 23

In macOS, I believe you can simply delete the .npm-global folder in your User directory.

.npm and .npm-global folders in macOS User directory:

Answer 24

sed solution

npm -gp ls | sed -r '/npm$|(node_modules.*){2,}/d; s:.*/([^/]+)$:\1:g' | xargs npm rm -g

Answer 25

Just put in your console:

sudo npm list -g --depth=0. | awk -F ' ' '{print $2}' | awk -F '@' '{print $1}' | sudo xargs npm remove -g

Its work for me...