How to delete all node_modules folders on a Mac

To delete every node_modules folder under one folder, list them, then remove them with find:

find ~/Code -name node_modules -type d -prune -exec rm -rf {} +

That command has no undo, so do not paste it yet. The rest of this guide shows what it would remove, how much each folder weighs, which folders to leave alone, and how each one comes back.

See every node_modules folder and its size

Replace ~/Code with the folder that holds your projects.

find ~/Code -name node_modules -type d -prune -exec du -sh {} + | sort -hr | head -20

Two parts of that line matter:

• -prune stops find from walking into a node_modules it has already found. Nested copies are not listed twice, and the search finishes in seconds instead of minutes.
• du -sh prints one total per folder, and sort -hr puts the largest first.

For a single number, add the sizes up:

find ~/Code -name node_modules -type d -prune -exec du -sk {} + | awk '{ kb += $1 } END { printf "%.1f GB\n", kb / 1048576 }'

Do not search your whole home folder

It is tempting to point find at ~. Several tools keep a node_modules folder that is not a project dependency, and deleting it breaks the tool:

Remove the first one and that Node version has no npm any more. Keep the search inside the folder where your projects live.

Delete only the ones you have not touched

A project you worked on this morning needs its packages. A project from last spring does not. -mtime +30 keeps the folders that have not changed for 30 days:

find ~/Code -name node_modules -type d -prune -mtime +30 -print

The modification time of a node_modules folder moves when a package is added to it or removed from it, so an old date is a fair sign that nobody has run an install there for a month. Read the list. When it is right, swap -print for the delete:

find ~/Code -name node_modules -type d -prune -mtime +30 -exec rm -rf {} +

The interactive way: npkill

If you would rather pick folders from a list, npkill shows every node_modules under the current folder with its size:

cd ~/Code && npx npkill

Move with the arrow keys and press Space to delete the selected folder. It deletes at once, so read the path on the row before you press.

How each folder comes back

The lockfile in the project tells you which command to run:

Without a lockfile, npm install resolves every version range again and you can end up with newer packages than the ones the project last ran with. A project with no lockfile deserves a second look before its node_modules goes.

One more case: pnpm. Its node_modules is mostly hard links into the pnpm store, so deleting the folder frees little by itself. The space returns when you prune the pnpm store afterwards. The download caches of npm are a separate folder too, covered in how to clear the npm cache.

Monorepos and workspaces

A workspace project has one node_modules at the root and often smaller ones inside single packages. The find commands in this guide list each of them, because -prune only stops the search from going deeper into a folder it has matched. You do not need to restore them one by one. One install at the root of the repository, with the command from the table above, recreates all of them.