NPM basics of Global Packages

The information shared below is npm basics of global packages which are partially hidden or difficult to find in the docs page. I hope they help. Lets dabble.

1) NPM install global packages - example to install Webpack globally

npm install -g webpack

2) Listing globally installed NPM packages and version

npm list -g --depth=0

The result will look something like this:

C:\Users\thatAfro\AppData\Roaming\npm
+-- @angular/cli@8.3.29
+-- ionic@5.4.16
`-- webpack@4.46.0

3) Update Global Packages

Find/View packages which need to be updated:

npm outdated -g --depth=0

The result will look something like this:

C:\Users\thatAfro>npm outdated -g --depth=0
Package  Current  Wanted  Latest  Location
npm        6.1.0   6.2.0   6.2.0
webpack   4.12.1  4.16.1  4.16.1

Update all global packages

npm update -g

In some cases you may want to update packages one at a time, so you can do this as follows:

npm update -g

For example updating webpack, it would look like this

npm update -g webpack

4) Uninstall Global Packages

npm uninstall -g
For example uninstall webpack, it would look like this

npm uninstall -g webpack

5) Uninstall npm modules in node.js

As commonly known, any npm module can be installed by running a simple command: npm install

The command is simply npm uninstall

The nodejs documents have all the commands that you need to know with npm.

A local install will be in the node_modules/ directory of your application. This won't affect the application if a module remains there with no references to it.

If you’re removing a global package however, any applications referencing it will crash.

Here are different options:

npm uninstall removes the module from node_modules, but not package.json

npm uninstall --save also removes it from dependencies in package.json

npm uninstall --save-dev also removes it from devDependencies in package.json

npm -g uninstall --save also removes it globally.

For further help with npm, you can visit the docs page

NPM Official Documentation