Where does npm install packages

Question

Can someone tell me where can I find the Node js modules  which I installed using npm

User · Answer

I was beginning to go mad while searching for the real configuration, so here is the list of all configuration files on linux:

/etc/npmrc
/home/youruser/.npmrc
/root/.npmrc
./.npmrc in the current directory next to package.json file (thanks to @CyrillePontvieux)

on windows:

c/Program\ Files/nodejs/node_modules/npm/npmrc

Then in this file the prefix is configured:

prefix=/usr

The prefix is defaulted to /usr in linux, to ${APPDATA}\npm in windows

The node modules are under $prefix tree, and the path should contain $prefix/bin

There may be a problem :

When you install globally, you use "sudo su" then the /root/.npmrc may be used!
When you use locally without sudo: for your user its the /home/youruser/.npmrc.
When your path doesn't represent your prefix
When you use npm set -g prefix /usr it sets the /etc/npmrc global, but doesn't override the local

Here is all the informations that were missing to find what is configured where. Hope I have been exhaustive.

User · Answer

Echo the config  npm config ls or npm config list  Show all the config settings  npm config ls -l or npm config ls --json  Print the effective node modules folder  npm root or npm root -g  Print the local prefix  npm prefix or npm prefix -g  This is the closest parent directory to contain a package json file or node modules directory      npm-config   npm Documentation npm-root   npm Documentation npm-prefix   npm Documentation

User · Answer

On windows I used npm list -g to find it out  By default my  global  packages were being installed to C  Users  Username  AppData Roaming npm

User · Answer

If you are looking for the executable that npm installed  maybe because you would like to put it in your PATH  you can simply do  npm bin   or  npm bin -g

User · Answer

The easiest way would be to do      npm list -g   to list the package and view their installed location   I had installed npm via chololatey  so the location is  C  MyProgramData chocolatey lib nodejs commandline 0 10 31 tools node modules  C  MyProgramData  is chocolatey repo location

User · Answer

In earlier versions of NPM modules were always placed in  usr local lib node or wherever you specified the npm root within the  npmrc file  However  in NPM 1 0  modules are installed in two places  You can have modules installed local to your application in   node modules or you can have them installed globally which will use the above   More information can be found at https   github com isaacs npm blob master doc install md

User · Answer

You can find globally installed modules by the command  npm list -g   It will provide you the location where node js modules have been installed   C  Users  Username  AppData Roaming npm   If you install node js modules locally in a folder  you can type the following command to see the location   npm list

User · Answer

From the docs      Packages are dropped into the node modules folder under the prefix    When installing locally  this means that you can   require  packagename   to load its main module  or   require  packagename lib path to sub module   to load other modules       Global installs on Unix systems go to  prefix  lib node modules    Global installs on Windows go to  prefix  node modules  that is  no   lib folder        Scoped packages are installed the same way  except they are grouped   together in a sub-folder of the relevant node modules folder with the   name of that scope prefix by the   symbol  e g  npm install    myorg package would place the package in    prefix  node modules  myorg package  See scope for more details       If you wish to require   a package  then install it locally    You can get your  prefix  with npm config get prefix   Useful when you installed node with nvm    Read about locally  Read about globally

User · Answer

In Ubuntu 14 04 they are installed at    usr lib node modules

User · Answer

Btw  npm will look for node modules in parent folders  up to very root  if can not find in local

User · Answer

If a module was installed with the global  -g  flag  you can get the parent location by running  npm get prefix  or npm ls -g --depth 0  which will print the location along with the list of installed modules

User · Answer

Global libraries  You can run npm list -g to see which global libraries are installed and where they re located  Use npm list -g   head -1 for truncated output showing just the path  If you want to display only main packages not its sub-packages which installs along with it - you can use - npm list --depth 0 which will show all packages and for getting only globally installed packages  just add -g i e  npm list -g --depth 0   On Unix systems they are normally placed in  usr local lib node or  usr local lib node modules when installed globally  If you set the NODE PATH environment variable to this path  the modules can be found by node   Windows XP -  USERPROFILE  AppData npm node modules Windows 7  8 and 10 -  USERPROFILE  AppData Roaming npm node modules  Non-global libraries  Non-global libraries are installed the node modules sub folder in the folder you are currently in    You can run npm list to see the installed non-global libraries for your current location         When installing use -g option to install globally  npm install -g pm2 - pm2 will be installed globally  It will then typically be found in  usr local lib node modules  Use npm root -g to check where    npm install pm2 - pm2 will be installed locally  It will then typically be found in the local directory in  node modules

User · Answer

Expanding upon other answers  npm list -g  will show you the location of globally installed packages  If you want to output that list to a file that you can then easily search in your text editor  npm list -g  gt    Desktop npmfiles txt

User · Answer

Windows 7  8 and 10 -  USERPROFILE  AppData Roaming npm node modules    Note   If you are somewhere in folder type cd    until you are in C  directory  Then  type cd  USERPROFILE  AppData Roaming npm node modules  And  magically  USERPROFILE  will change into Users YourUserProfile   I just wanted to clarify on ideas referred by Decko in first response  npm list -g will list all the bits you got globally installed  If you need to find your project related npm package then cd  your angular project xyz   then run npm list  It will show list of modules in npm package  It will also give you list of dependencies missing  and you may require to effectively run that project

User · Answer

Windows 10  When I ran npm prefix -g  I noticed that the install location was inside of the git shell s path that I used to install  Even when that location was added to the path  the command from the globally installed package would not be recognized  Fixed by    running npm config edit  changing the prefix to  C  Users username AppData Roaming npm   adding that path to the system path variable reinstalling the package with -g

User · Answer

For globally-installed modules   The other answers give you platform-specific responses  but a generic one is this   When you install global module with npm install -g something  npm looks up a config variable prefix to know where to install the module   You can get that value by running npm config get prefix  To display all the global modules available in that folder use npm ls -g --depth 0  depth 0 to not display their dependencies    If you want to change the global modules path  use npm config edit and put prefix    my npm global modules prefix in the file or use npm config set prefix  my npm global modules prefix   When you use some tools like nodist  they change the platform-default installation path of global npm modules

User · Answer

If you have Visual Studio installed  you will find it comes with its own copy of node separate from the one that is on the path when you installed node yourself - Mine is in C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 Community MSBuild Microsoft VisualStudio NodeJs   If you run the npm command from inside this directory you will find out which node modules are installed inside visual studio

User · Answer

The command npm root will tell you the effective installation directory of your npm packages   If your current working directory is a node package or a sub-directory of a node package  npm root will tell you the local installation directory  npm root -g will show the global installation root regardless of current working directory    Example     npm root -g  usr local lib node modules   See the documentation

User · Answer

To get a compact list without dependencies simply use  npm list -g --depth 0

User · Answer

If you re trying to access your global dir from code  you can backtrack from process execPath  For example  to find wsproxy  which is in  NODE GLOBAL DIR  bin wsproxy  you can just   path join path dirname process execPath    wsproxy     There s also how the npm cli works   ec9fcc1 lib npm js L254 with   path resolve process execPath                See also ec9fcc1 lib install js L521   var globalPackage   path resolve npm globalPrefix                                    lib    node modules   moduleName pkg     Where globalPrefix has a default set in ec9fcc1 lib config defaults js L92-L105 of   if  process env PREFIX        globalPrefix   process env PREFIX   else if  process platform      win32            c  node node exe -- gt  prefix c  node      globalPrefix   path dirname process execPath    else           usr local bin node -- gt  prefix  usr local     globalPrefix   path dirname path dirname process execPath           destdir only is respected on Unix     if  process env DESTDIR            globalPrefix   path join process env DESTDIR  globalPrefix

User · Answer

As the other answers say  the best way is to do npm list -g  However  if you have a large number of npm packages installed  the output of this command could be very long and a big pain to scroll up  sometimes it s not even possible to scroll that far back   In this case  pipe the output to the more program  like this npm list -g   more

User · Answer

From the docs      In npm 1 0  there are two ways to install things          globally    - This drops modules in  prefix  lib node modules  and puts executable files in  prefix  bin  where  prefix  is usually   something like  usr local  It also installs man pages in    prefix  share man  if they   re supplied    locally    - This installs your package in the current working directory  Node modules go in   node modules  executables go in     node modules  bin   and man pages aren   t installed at all       You can get your  prefix  with npm config get prefix   Useful when you installed node with nvm

User · Answer

Not direct answer but may help       The npm also has a cache folder  which can be found by running npm config get cache   AppData  npm-cache on Windows     The npm modules are first downloaded here and then copied to npm global folder   AppData  Roaming npm on Windows  or project specific folder  your-project node modules    So if you want to track npm packages  and some how  the list of all downloaded npm packages  if the npm cache is not cleaned   have a look at this folder  The folder structure is as  cache   name   version   This may help also https   docs npmjs com cli cache

[javascript] Where does npm install packages?

Examples related to javascript

Examples related to node.js

Examples related to location

Examples related to npm