Delete node_modules folder recursively from a specified path using command line
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 {} +
Try https://github.com/voidcosmos/npkill
npx npkill
it will find all node_modules and let you remove them.
Improving on the accepted answer,
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -exec rm -rf '{}' +
I found that the command 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 \;
and 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 printing the folder being deleted
find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -print -exec rm -rf '{}' \;
Edit:
For the people who like interactive way of doing this refer to @jeckep answer, run this in the directory that you wish to prune.
npx npkill