Node.js - Find home directory in platform agnostic way

node.js filesystems platform-independent home-directory platform-agnostic
Matthew picture Matthew · Jan 31, 2012 · Viewed 111.2k times · Source

Process.platform returns "win32" for Windows. On Windows a user's home directory might be C:\Users[USERNAME] or C:\Documents and Settings[USERNAME] depending on which version of Windows is being used. On Unix this isn't an issue.

Answer

maerics picture maerics · Jan 31, 2012

As mentioned in a more recent answer, the preferred way is now simply:

const homedir = require('os').homedir();

[Original Answer]: Why not use the USERPROFILE environment variable on win32?

function getUserHome() {
  return process.env[(process.platform == 'win32') ? 'USERPROFILE' : 'HOME'];
}

Related questions

Remove directory which is not empty

In my Node application I need to remove a directory which has some files, but fs.rmdir only works on empty directories. How can I do this?

Read More
Node.js check if path is file or directory

I can't seem to get any search results that explain how to do this. All I want to do is be able to know if a given path is a file or a directory (folder).

Read More
fs: how do I locate a parent folder?

How do I write this to go back up the parent 2 levels to find a file? fs.readFile(__dirname + 'foo.bar');

Read More