How to clean node_modules folder of packages that are not in package.json?

node.js package npm
Sergei Basharov picture Sergei Basharov · Jan 14, 2014 · Viewed 515.2k times · Source

Assume I install project packages with npm install that looks into package.json for modules to be installed. After a while I see that I don't need some specific module and remove its dependency from package.json. Then I remove some other modules from package.json because they are not needed anymore and others are replaced with alternatives.

Now I want to clean node_modules folder so that only modules listed in package.json stay there and the rest must go, something like npm clean. I know I can remove them manually but would like to have some nice ready to use sugar functionality for that.

Answer

David Sherret picture David Sherret · Jan 14, 2014

I think you're looking for npm prune

npm prune [<name> [<name ...]]

This command removes "extraneous" packages. If a package name is provided, then only packages matching one of the supplied names are removed.

Extraneous packages are packages that are not listed on the parent package's dependencies list.

See the docs: https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/prune

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