[node.js] How to downgrade Node version

I want to downgrade my Node version from the latest to v6.10.3.

But nothing worked so far. Tried NVM and it gives an error as well by saying make command is not found. How can I downgrade Node?

This question is related to node.js

The answer is


 curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.33.11/install.sh | bash
 sudo npm install -g n
 sudo n 10.15
 npm install
 npm audit fix
 npm start

If you are on macOS and are not using NVM, the simplest way is to run the installer that comes from node.js web site. It it clever enough to manage substitution of your current installation with the new one, even if it is an older one. At least this worked for me.


For windows 10,

  • Uninstalling the node from the "Add or remove programs"
  • Installing the required version from https://nodejs.org/en/

worked for me.


Determining your Node version

node -v  // or node --version
npm -v   // npm version or long npm --version

Ensure that you have n installed

sudo npm install -g n // -g for global installation 

Upgrading to the latest stable version

sudo n stable

Changing to a specific version

sudo n 10.16.0

Answer inspired by this article.


Try using the following commands

//For make issues 
sudo apt-get install build-essential

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.33.4/install.sh | bash

//To uninstall a node version 
nvm uninstall <current version>

nvm install 6.10.3

nvm use 6.10.3

//check with 
node -v

For windows:

Steps

  1. Go to Control panel> program and features>Node.js then uninstall

  2. Go to website: https://nodejs.org/en/ and download the version and install.


Steps to downgrade to node8

brew install node@8
brew link node@8 --force

if warning remove the folder and files as indicated in the warning then again the command :

brew link node@8 --force

If you're on Windows I suggest manually uninstalling node and installing chocolatey to handle your node installation. choco is a great CLI for provisioning a ton of popular software.

Then you can just do,

choco install nodejs --version $VersionNumber

and if you already have it installed via chocolatey you can do,

choco uninstall nodejs 
choco install nodejs --version $VersionNumber

For example,

choco uninstall nodejs
choco install nodejs --version 12.9.1

In case of windows, one of the options you have is to uninstall current version of Node. Then, go to the node website and download the desired version and install this last one instead.


In Mac there is a fast method with brew:

brew search node

You see some version, for example: node@10 node@12 ... Then

brew unlink node

And now select a before version for example node@12

brew link --overwrite --force node@12

Ready, you have downgraded you node version.


This may be due to version incompatibility between your code and the version you have installed.

In my case I was using v8.12.0 for development (locally) and installed latest version v13.7.0 on the server.

So using nvm I switched the node version to v8.12.0 with the below command:

> nvm install 8.12.0 // to install the version I wanted

> nvm use 8.12.0  // use the installed version

NOTE: You need to install nvm on your system to use nvm.

You should try this solution before trying solutions like installing build-essentials or uninstalling the current node version because you could switch between versions easily than reverting all the installations/uninstallations that you've done.