How to Delete node modules - Deep Nested Folder in Windows

Question

Upon trying to remove the node modules directory created by npm install        The source file name s  are larger than is supported by the file   system  Try moving to a location which has a shorter path name  or try   renaming to shorter name s  before attempting this operation   I also tried shift   delete and still having the same issue

User · Answer

Okay so my problem was that i had  bin folder inside node modules and i wasn t able to delete that  I tried all the above solutions for the same but nothing worked   Error which was repeating was  u do not have permission to delete the folder or its been used by some other program    Solution that i found   I had Antivirus installed on my pc  which was unknowingly using the files from node modules folder    I uninstalled the antivirus or u can change permission setting from antivirus setting option  depends on which antivirus u have  Now i am able to delete  node modules folder

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Please save yourself the need to read most of these answers and just use npx rather than trying to install rimraf globally  You can run a single command and always have the most recent version with none of the issues seen here  npx rimraf      node modules

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From this looks of this MSDN article  it looks like you can now bypass the MAX PATH restriction in Windows 10 v1607  AKA  anniversary update   by changing a value in the registry - or via Group Policy

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Sometimes  even if you install rimraf globally you can have a local rimraf dependency  SASS usually have it   In this case I would run following commands   Follow first 2 steps as usagidon recommended  if you have issues or errors try  npm uninstall rimraf  amp  rimraf node modules   this will delete local rimraf and use the global one

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On Windows Platform the simplest way is to use the terminal  Please Run the command RMDIR  Q S foldername to delete the folder and all of its subfolders  Example  RMDIR  Q S node modules The Above Command deletes node modules folder and its subfolders  For information please visit this https   www ghacks net 2017 07 18 how-to-delete-large-folders-in-windows-super-fast

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Not exactly related  but as this is the first post I found in my search for a similar solution I think it s worth posting here   I was running into permission issues on Windows 10 trying to delete my node modules folder after a failed attempt at installing electron-redux  It seems electron-redux added  types to my node modules  which had incorrect permissions set up   rimraf did not work as it still ran into permission issues   I ended up renaming node modules then a simple delete worked

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I needed to clean up an entire Projects directory for backup purposes  so I installed rimraf and ran this at the root dir  inside a git bash prompt   find   -name  quot node modules quot  -type d -prune -exec rimraf         Very effective  truly recursive  avoids children node modules  and fast on windows  thanks to rimraf   Sources   https   rtmccormick com 2018 01 10 clear-node-modules-folders-recursively-mac-linux  The accepted answer in this question that suggests rimraf but lacks in the recursive aspect

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One solution that I use    I would prefer to avoid installing a new extension  rimraf  when working with CI environments     A  Rename packages json to something else  B  Specially on CI - after npm install  I usually remove the file instead of renaming it  but if you need it  you don t have to do this  That s your choice  run npm init - this will create an empty packages json file  no dependencies  run npm prune - this will match node modules with the dependencies section of packages json - which is now empty as the result of step  2  If you have chosen  1 A  step  delete the newly created packages json  and rename original packages json back to its original name

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Its too easy   Just delete all folders inside node modules and then delete actual node module folder   This Works for me  Best luck

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What worked for me was    closed the node manager console closed the Atom  visual studio code   dev environment you are in  then delete the node modules  npm install rimraf -g  rimraf node modules

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I just do del node modules inside my project folder on PowerShell  it will ask you if you want to remove it and its children folder  just hit  Y  and that s it

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You can use Git Bash to remove the folder   example  c  users stu projects mynodeproject     rm  c users stu projects mynodeproject -rfd

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I made a Windows context item to fast delete node modules or other folders  I use it when Windows doesn t delete a folder because of some invalid chars in the directory path   HOW TO INSTALL    Install rimraf     npm install rimraf -g Create a new file named delete bat  set the content as below and copy it into c  windows system32   delete bat      ECHO OFF  ECHO   ECHO  CD    ECHO   ECHO Are you sure to delete the folder with Rimraf   PAUSE  SET FOLDER  CD   CD     rimraf   FOLDER     rem DEL  F Q S   FOLDER    gt  NUL  rem RMDIR  Q S   FOLDER     EXIT    Run fast-delete reg file to import into registry   Done

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You may use another npm package specifically for this purpose   By installing it locally in the folder using   npm i rm-node-modules-recur  If you wish you can also install it globally with -g switch   If installed locally you can invoke the binary from current directory node modules bin  using      node modules  bin rmnodes   lt top level directory within quotes gt     If you chose global installation simply use   rmnodes   lt top level directory within quotes gt     and thats it    this package will end up deleting node modules from all sub directories recursively  in my case some 60 odd folders  with ease  refer attached snapshot   using rm-node-modules-recur

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DELETE only by using DOS command without any installation    Create an empty folder  test  on C or D drive and use following DOS command  robocopy  MIR c  test D  UserData FolderToDelete  gt  NUL   After completing above command  your folder will be empty  now you can delete the folder   Don t worry your test folder will always be empty  so you can delete it at any time

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Any file manager allow to avoid such issues  e g Far Manager

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I think this was not mentioned before  but the best way to delete unwanted node modules is to install an utility called npmkill  Installation  From your terminal  npm i -g npkill  And to use it  From your terminal  npkill  You will then be presented with a list of projects  and by hitting space bar you can delete their node modules

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Advance a little beat for multiple folders     If you have a project folder with multiple  builds  that contains  node module   Like    C  Project build-1 node modules C  Project build-2 node modules C  Project build-3 node modules C  Project build-4 node modules   You want to delete all folders starts with  build     First install nodejs and rimraf as suggested above    Then go to path with project and run PowerShell command   cd  C  Project  Get-ChildItem build    foreach  rimraf -Path    FullName    It will take a wile

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The PowerShell way   PS  gt  rm -r -force node modules    The same  but without using aliases PS  gt  Remove-Item -Recurse -Force node modules   And if you want to delete every node modules in sub directories   Note Potentially dangerous as it deletes recursively  be sure of what you re doing here  PS  gt  dir -Path   -Filter node modules -recurse   foreach  echo    fullname  rm -r -Force    fullname

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On Windows my go to solution is using the rmdir command   rd  S   node modules   If it fails the first time -- try one more time  Also check if you have running scripts currently using the modules  npm run serve or similar

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Since this the top google result  this is what worked for me  Update  if you have npm v5  use npx  npx rimraf      node modules Otherwise install RimRaf  npm install rimraf -g And in the project folder delete the node modules folder with  rimraf node modules If you want to recursively delete  rimraf      node modules   http   www nikola-breznjak com blog nodejs how-to-delete-node modules-folder-on-windows-machine

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I had a similar problem and RD didn t work  for some unknown reason   NPM can get rid of its own mess though  so if you do npm uninstall  module-name  for each directory in node modules  you ll get rid of them    I ll look up how to batch loop this later  for those who have lots of dependencies

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Just use powershell    Run powershell and cd to the parent folder and then   rm  yourfolder    as in   rm node modules

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You can use Git Bash to remove the folder   example  c  users olefrank projects mynodeproject     rm -rf  c users olefrank projects mynodeproject

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Delete Deep Netsted Folder like node modules in Windows   Option 1   Delete using rimraf NPM package   Open command prompt and change your directory to the folder where  node modules folder exists  Run  rimraf node modules Missing rimraf ERROR then Install  npm install rimraf -g When the installation completes  run  rimraf node modules  Option 2    Detele without installing anything   Create a folder with name test in any Drive  robocopy  MIR c  test D  UserData FolderToDelete  gt  NUL delete the folder test and FolderToDelete as both are empty    Why this is an issue in windows   One of the deep nested folder structure is node modules  Windows can   t delete the folder as its name is too long  To solve this  Easy solution  install a node module RimRaf

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I ve simply done that by using Winrar  this may seem a strange solution but working very well    right click on node modules folder select Add to archive     from the menu  Winrar dialog opens just check the option delete files after archiving Don t forget to delete the node modules rar after finished      UPDATE  This also works with 7Zip

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On Windows  using Total Commander all you have to do is select the folder click shift   delete   Don t forget about the shift key

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Try Visual Studio Code  After trying many solution i find this one is pretty simple  just open the project in Visual code and delete it  the UI may freeze for some seconds but it will definitely works I test using many large size node modules folder with it     Thanks

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npm install -g remove-node-modules cd to root and remove-node-modules or remove-node-modules path to folder   Source   https   github com j-quelly node-cleanup

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I used GitBash to remove de folder   rm -r node modules   It took a while to delete everything  but worked for me

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simple just run for windows I haven t tested it for other operating systems  rm -r node modules   in fact  you can delete any folder with this   like rm -r AnyFolderWhichIsNotDeletableFromShiftDeleteOrDelete   just open the gitbash move to root of the folder and run this command  Hope this will help   Thanks  Ajay Kotnala

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You can make simple batch based on  mike-caron answer so you don t need to type every time whole robocopy command instead just input path to selected folder    echo off ECHO What Directory would you like to empty  ECHO Current path   cd  SET  p UserInputPath Input relative path to directory  ROBOCOPY  MIR empty dir  cd   UserInputPath   gt  NUL PAUSE   Here you are using empty directory named empty dir in robocopy command that needs to be in same directory with batch file for this to work  After batch file finishes its job both selected directory and empty dir directory will be empty so that you can remove them   I made a simple batch file that creates empty folder and after robocopy command is executed removes both empty folder and selected folder so that only thing you need to do is enter path to selected folder that you want to delete   It is fast and practical if you don t want to install stuff like rimraf  You can download it here https   github com 5imun WinCleaner

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Tried everything but didn t work  All the above methods did nothing  At last I was able to delete via VSCode    Just Open your root folder with VSCode  Select node modules folder and delete  Profit   It will take few milliseconds to delete

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I m on windows 10 and I could nt delete folders with message  directory not emtpy   Neither rimraf nor rm -rf worked   Copying an empty text file to every single folder did the trick - I was able to delete the complete node modules folder

[node.js] How to Delete node_modules - Deep Nested Folder in Windows

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