How to uninstall npm package?

Question

I've installed grunt using sudo npm install grunt and now I can't remove it.

I've tried:

$ sudo npm uninstall grunt

But it gives me a WARN:

npm WARN uninstall not installed in /home/kuba/projects/node_modules: "grunt-cli"

I've also tried rm, remove and unlink. and -g options, but those give:

npm WARN uninstall not installed in /usr/lib/node_modules: "grunt"

But I still can run grunt from command line.

EDIT:

$ whereis grunt
grunt: /usr/local/bin/grunt
$ file /usr/local/bin/grunt
/usr/local/bin/grunt: symbolic link to `../lib/node_modules/grunt/bin/grunt'
$ ls /usr/local/lib/node_modules
grunt jshint
$ ls /usr/lib/node_modules
bower  csslint  devtools-terminal  npm  plato

Why I have 2 directories with npm? Is it safe to just delete them?

EDITOR NOTE:

This question was asked over 5 years ago as How to uninstall npm package. It's been a very useful question favourited by many, who found a solution to their problem, so I'm changing it back from a recent edit that called it How to uninstall grunt package, because it requires the same procedure as any other npm package.

Answer 1

To uninstall a npm module from project node_modules folder, run:

npm uninstall <module> --save

Note that npm modules should be uninstalled from the same directory that contains the node_modules folder when running this command. The --save option will also remove it from your package.json

One can also remove a local dependency/module installation, by deleting its directory from the local node_modules folder. Yes, it's safe to delete dependencies there.

To uninstall a npm module that was installed globally, run:

npm uninstall -g <module>

It doesn't matter where you run this command from.

To install a npm module, run: (only meant as reference)

npm install <module>

...or:

npm install (if there's a package.json file at the root of your project)

...or:

npm install <module> --save-dev (if you want to add a minimum version to the dependency)

Good things to know about Grunt:

• If you have installed grunt stable before February 18, 2013 (the day grunt v0.4.x was released), you might have an older grunt version still lingering in your system. That's because grunt versions lower than 0.4.x were installed globally, which caused a lot of pain when upgrading/maintaining versions.

• grunt and grunt-cli are two different things.

  • grunt (without the "cli") is usually installed at the project level (when listed as a devDependency in package.json) by running npm install. That's also known as a local installation.
  • grunt-cli is the underlying foundation on which local versions of grunt run in different projects/folders. It can be installed locally, but is more useful when installed globally, once.

• grunt is only installed locally (by running npm install grunt).

• grunt-cli is preferably installed globally (by running npm install -g grunt-cli). grunt-cli official npm page still warns against installing grunt (without the cli) globally.
• If you want to uninstall the global installation of grunt-cli, run npm uninstall -g grunt-cli. This issue on gruntjs's project supports this procedure.
• Never install grunt globally (by running npm install -g grunt).

On npm and sudo

sudo doesn't play well with npm. Only use it if you must. Below are two quotes on the advantages and disadvantages on its use:

Quoting Isaac Z. Schlueter on his Introduction to npm article:

I strongly encourage you not to do package management with sudo! Packages can run arbitrary scripts, which makes sudoing a package manager command as safe as a chainsaw haircut. Sure, it's fast and definitely going to cut through any obstacles, but you might actually want that obstacle to stay there.

I recommend doing this once instead:

sudo chown -R $USER /usr/local

That sets your user account as the owner of the /usr/local directory, so that you can just issue normal commands in there. Then you won't ever have to use sudo when you install node or issue npm commands.

It's much better this way. /usr/local is supposed to be the stuff you installed, after all.

Yet another catch mentioned by Andrei Karpushonak:

There are certain security concerns and functionality limitations regarding changing the ownership of /usr/local to the current user:

• if there is another user on the machine who could use global npm packages - do not change the ownership of /usr/local
• https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/1393/are-my-permissions-for-usr-local-correct
• https://askubuntu.com/questions/261326/is-it-safe-to-chown-usr-local

Having said that, if you want to install global module without using sudo, I don't see any better solution (from pragmatic point of view) than mentioned. Security vs easy of use is very broad topic, and there is no easy answer for that - it just depends on your requirements.