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I think I've been using npm incorrectly, most of the time installing globally (with -g) instead of locally (with -save). Now I have a long list of global packages that I want/ought** to clean up.

(**I'm new to this, and in addition to being OCD-tidy, I don't want to accidentally use a package in an app without explicitly mentioning it, otherwise it might become a tough puzzle to deploy someplace.).

I understand that I can use npm uninstall <package> -g to do the actual removal, but how do I decide what should stay? There's a looong list of things named like "[email protected]" and so on.

Is there a way to determine if a project is using it, or if its the kind of thing I need globally? It will be a long day going to the docs for each one. Or maybe there's a rule of thumb, like: "one typically needs x, y, and z, and you can delete the rest"?

Also, once I have a removal list, is my only choice to execute all of those unistall -g commands one by one?

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    Generally, if you run it from the command line, it's a global package, whereas if you require() it in a project, it should be local. Commented Mar 7, 2016 at 15:43
  • I just learned that most of the packages are installed as parts of others, and (I think) will get removed when I remove the parent. The list isn't as long as I thought, and I recognize most of the names on the left side of the list. I guess I should delete this question, but stackoverflow says I can't because it has an answer. Commented Mar 7, 2016 at 16:01
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    It was a valid question IMO - no harm in leaving it up. Commented Mar 7, 2016 at 16:04
  • Why do you think installing globally is the wrong way? (I too am a new user, and I too avoid installing locally, but is this wrong?) Commented Mar 7, 2016 at 18:16
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    @Ayyash - If you globally install a package and then use it in two projects, you can't update it for one and not the other, whereas if you install it locally to a project, you can have a separate version in each project without them interfering. Also, if you have your packages locally installed, and saved to your package.json, it means you don't have to copy node_modules if you want to develop on another computer; you just have to run npm install, and it'll pull them all in automatically. Locally installing packages just generally makes tracking/managing a project's dependencies easier. Commented Mar 8, 2016 at 10:28

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You can use: npm uninstall -g package_to_uninstall

See:https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/uninstall If you prefer video: https://docs.npmjs.com/getting-started/uninstalling-global-packages

If you want to remove all packages; There is trick: Please follow below link: Command to remove all npm modules globally?

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Related q: how do I remove any associated scripts in my /usr/local/bin ?
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this didn't work on ubuntu for pm2, I had to run npm remove pm2 -g

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npm remove is an alias of npm uninstall, and rm, r, un and unlink, Check npm help uninstall for more info.

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