CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsnpm
embracethefuture
embracethefuture

Reputation: 705

How to remove unwanted packages from node_modules? npm rm doesn't work

I can't for the life of me figure out an easy way to remove packages from node_modules.

I'm following along a tutorial where it tells me to use npm rm <pkg>, but when I verify that I performed the action correctly, it says that dependencies are still lying around. I looked in my root directory and noticed that although the package was deleted from my package.json, it's still there in my node_modules directory. Why doesn't npm rm <pkg> actually remove the package like I imagine it's supposed to? What is the other solution? I suppose I can delete my node_modules directory entirely, but that wouldn't work if I had other dependencies/packages that I relied on.

I've tried googling for the answer, but strangely nothing comes up.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 4773

Answers (1)

Hamada
Hamada

Reputation: 1898

npm uninstall removes the module from node_modules, but not package.json.

npm uninstall <pkg> --save will also delete the dependency from package.json.

npm rm <pkg> removes the packages when uninstall not working

npm prune <pkg> for extraneous packages

If you don't want to uninstall one by one run

rm -rf pkg-name && npm cache clean && npm install

Upvotes: 4

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