I have multiple npm projects saved in a local directory. Now I want to take backup of my projects without the node_modules folder, as it is taking a lot of space and can also be retrieved any time using npm install.
So, what would be a solution to delete all node_modules folders recursively from a specified path using the command line interface?
Print out a list of directories to be deleted:
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune
Delete directories from the current working directory:
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -exec rm -rf '{}' +
Alternatively you can use trash (brew install trash) for staged deletion:
find . -name node_modules -type d -prune -exec trash {} +
-prune is an important optimization. It'll case find not to recurse into node_module directories (to look for nested node_modules)
/node_modules/gulp-server-livereload/node_modules: Directory not empty in a lot of "inner" node_modules folders. How to workaround this?
'{}' +?
{} is a placeholder which find replaces with the file path it found. + tells find to append all the file paths to a single command rather than running rm for each.
node_modules is sent to valhallaImproving on the accepted answer:
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -exec rm -rf '{}' +
I found that the command above would run a very long time to fetch all folders and then run a delete command. To make the command resumable, I'd suggest using \;. To see progress of the command being run, use -print to see the directory being deleted.
Note: You must first cd into the root directory and then run the command. Or instead of find ., use find {project_directory}.
To delete folders one by one:
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -exec rm -rf '{}' \;
To delete folders one by one and print the folder being deleted:
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -print -exec rm -rf '{}' \;
For the people who like an interactive way of doing this, refer to jeckep's answer. Run this in the directory you wish to prune:
npx npkill
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -print -exec bash -c 'rm -rf "$0"/* "$0"/..?* "$0"/.[!.]*' {} \; The wildcards are for matching hidden files and folders (starting with .) as per unix.stackexchange.com/a/77313/486273
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -exec lms rm '{}' +
When on Windows, I use the following .BAT file to delete node_modules recursively from the current folder:
@for /d /r . %d in (node_modules) do @if exist %d (echo %d && rd %d /s /q)
Or, via CMD.EXE:
>cmd.exe /c "@for /d /r . %d in (node_modules) do @if exist %d (echo "%d" && rd "%d" /s /q)""
In Bash, you can simply use
rm -rf node_modules **/node_modules
I have come across with this solution,
find and specify name of the folder.-exec rm -rf '{}' +run the following command to delete folders recursively
find /path -type d -name "node_modules" -exec rm -rf '{}' +
bash function to remove node_modules. It will remove all node_modules directories recursively from the current working directory,
while printing found paths.
You just need to put in somewhere in your $PATH
rmnodemodules(){
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -exec echo '{}' \; -exec rm -rf {} \;
}
Note: This is just improving on the accepted answer, please use the accepted answer first.
If you are so bored then keep reading.
Basically, this command should work fine for 99% of cases
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -exec rm -rf '{}' +
I notice that deleting files via the command line is longer than deleting a folder via Finder (when deleting from Finder it moves that folder to ~/.Trash directory).
So if you want to move node_modules to ~/.Trash folder then you can try
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -exec sh -c 'mv -f "$1" "$(dirname "$1")/$(basename $(dirname "$1"))_$(basename "$1")" && mv "$(dirname "$1")/$(basename $(dirname "$1"))_$(basename "$1")" ~/.Trash/' sh {} \;
as you notice it consist of 2 parts.
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune find all node_module dirs-exec sh -c 'mv -f "$1" "$(dirname "$1")/$(basename $(dirname "$1"))_$(basename "$1")" && mv "$(dirname "$1")/$(basename $(dirname "$1"))_$(basename "$1")" ~/.Trash/' sh {} \; rename node_module by prefixing it with it's parent folder name and move it to TrashBefore I had
~/Development/angular-projects
┣ project1
┣ project2
┗ project3
After running command
~/.Trash
┣ ~project1_node_modules
┣ ~project2_node_modules
┗ ~project3_node_modules
Then make sure to empty trash
Or Turn On empty trash feature
If you want to move instead of delete it:
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -exec mkdir -p ./another/dir/{} \; -exec mv -i {} ./NODE_MODULES/{} \;
This will keep the directory structure.
Quite late to the party, but doesn't this remove all node_modules recursively (on Linux and MacOS at least)?
rm -rf node_modules */node_modules */*/node_modules
A simple trick to remove all node_modules folders in your servers (which can reduce a lot of space) is to run:
# For Ubuntu
sudo find / -not -path "/usr/lib/*" -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -exec rm -rf '{}' +
# For macOS
sudo find / -not -path "/usr/local/*" -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -exec rm -rf '{}' +
Here we need to exclude /usr/lib/* because if you won’t, it will delete your npm and you need to reinstall it :)
I wrote a tool in Rust for this with support for Windows, MacOS and Linux called rrm - GitHub
cd $HOME/Development
rrm -f node_modules .
Outputs
Looking within:
/home/alshdavid/Development
Looking for:
node_modules
Found:
/home/alshdavid/Development/my-project-a/node_modules
/home/alshdavid/Development/my-project-b/node_modules
/home/alshdavid/Development/my-project-c/node_modules
Delete matches? [y/N]
I wrote this because I wanted to use the same command line syntax on all platforms because I use Windows, MacOS and Linux.
It's a 200kb binary that does the trick
Python Script to Delete the node_modules folder from multiple projects. Just place it in your project folder consisting multiple projects and run it.
import os
import shutil
dirname = '/root/Desktop/proj' #Your Full Path of Projects Folder
dirfiles = os.listdir(dirname)
fullpaths = map(lambda name: os.path.join(dirname, name), dirfiles)
dirs = []
for file in fullpaths:
if os.path.isdir(file): dirs.append(file)
for i in dirs:
dirfiles1 = os.listdir(i)
fullpaths1 = map(lambda name: os.path.join(i, name), dirfiles1)
dirs1 = []
for file in fullpaths1:
if os.path.isdir(file):
dirs1.append(file)
if(file[-12:]=='node_modules'):
shutil.rmtree(file)
print(file)
To expand on the previous answers:
Here is a script that automatically deletes all */node_modules and */dist folders to clean out any installed libraries.
#!/bin/bash
# Script to clean all:
# - */node_modules
# - */dist
scriptDir=$(cd -P -- "$(dirname -- "$0")" && pwd -P)
cd "$scriptDir"
echo "Removing node_modules..."
args=(
. \( -name 'dist' -o -name 'node_modules' \) # find all folders with name dist or node_modules
-prune # exclude recursive search in subdirectories
-print # output results
-exec rm -rf '{}' + # delete all folders
)
find "${args[@]}"
echo "Done."
The cross-platform solution with pnpm:
$ pnpm --recursive exec pnpm dlx rimraf node_modules && pnpm dlx rimraf node_modules
Personally, I like to add it as a clean:modules task in monorepos root package.json:
"scripts": {
"clean:modules": "pnpm --recursive exec pnpm dlx rimraf node_modules && pnpm dlx rimraf node_modules",
…
}
Then you only have to remember pnpm clean:modules :)
