1044

How do I list the user-installed / environment package only in npm?

When I do npm -g list, it outputs every package and their dependencies. Instead I'd like to see the packages installed in the current working project or environment.

1
  • 3
    TL;DR; List all global: npm list -g --depth=0 Update all global: npm update -g Commented Aug 7, 2022 at 19:35

19 Answers 19

1963
npm list -g --depth=0
  • npm: the Node.js package manager command line tool
  • list -g: display a tree of every package found in the user’s folders (without the -g option it only shows the current directory’s packages)
  • --depth 0 / --depth=0: avoid including every package’s dependencies in the tree view
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  • 2
    Return empty result. My npm version is 3.6.0.
    – Bagusflyer
    Commented Jul 21, 2016 at 4:07
  • 20
    Why the --depth=0 option is not mentioned when I run npm help ls?
    – Marecky
    Commented Mar 7, 2018 at 10:48
  • 1
    If you install your modules at another folder using --prefix, then you need to add the --prefix too into this npm list command.
    – Sany Liew
    Commented Aug 6, 2018 at 4:06
  • 3
    @Fabricio, you can run npm config set depth 0 to make it the default. Commented Sep 17, 2018 at 12:15
  • 3
    It also might be good to add | grep -v "duped" to remove duplicated dependencies onto the list Commented Feb 8, 2019 at 21:23
175

You can get a list of all globally installed modules using:

ls `npm root -g`
8
  • 1
    @user2167582 On windows you would probably need something like a cygwin shell for it to work.
    – Gil
    Commented Jun 12, 2014 at 18:57
  • 20
    ls -lh `npm root -g` displays them in a nice list. Commented Feb 11, 2015 at 0:53
  • 6
    This solution is much faster than the top voted one.
    – DarkNeuron
    Commented Feb 5, 2016 at 11:31
  • 5
    This solution is nice but npm list -g --depth=0 which prints out the version which is nice. Anyways, I didn't know about this command so +1 for that.
    – pixel 67
    Commented Dec 22, 2016 at 10:31
  • 4
    npm root -g | gci in Powershell on windows
    – Lars
    Commented May 17, 2017 at 14:53
149

As of 13 December 2015

npm list illustration

While I found the accepted answer 100% correct, and useful, I wished to expand upon it a little based on my own experiences, and hopefully for the benefit of others too. (Here I am using the terms package and module interchangeably)

In an answer to the question, yes the accepted answer would be:

npm list -g --depth=0

You might wish to check for a particular module installed globally, on Unix-like systems or when grep is available. This is particularly useful when checking what version of a module you are using (globally installed; just remove the -g flag if checking a local module):

npm list -g --depth=0 | grep <module_name>

If you'd like to see all available (remote) versions for a particular module, then do:

npm view <module_name> versions

Note, versions is plural. This will give you the full listing of versions to choose from.

For the latest remote version:

npm view <module_name> version

Note, version is singular.

To find out which packages need to be updated, you can use:

npm outdated -g --depth=0

To update global packages, you can use

npm update -g <package>

To update all global packages, you can use:

npm update -g

(However, for npm versions less than 2.6.1, please also see this link as there is a special script that is recommended for globally updating all packages.)

The above commands should work across NPM versions 1.3.x, 1.4.x, 2.x and 3.x.

3
  • 1
    To update a specific global package: npm update -g <package>. I believe update is preferable to install here because npm will be smart and do the installation only if the specified package is outdated. Commented Jan 27, 2017 at 22:22
  • 1
    @Talespin_Kit probably screentogif Commented Jul 19, 2017 at 1:19
  • @Talespin_Kit ShareX is FANTASTIC for creating and sharing gif screenshots (and any other screen shots).
    – user11104582
    Commented Apr 10, 2019 at 10:49
70

List NPM packages with some friendly GUI!

This is what I personally prefer and it may be for others too, it may also help during presentations or meetings.

With npm-gui you can list local and global packages with a better visualization.

You can find the package at

Run the following

// Once
npm install -g npm-gui

cd c:\your-prject-folder
npm-gui localhost:9000

Then open your browser at http:\\localhost:9000

npm-gui

3
  • how do you load for globally installed packages ? Commented Dec 27, 2018 at 5:48
  • 1
    @Ciastopiekarz the top menu now has a Global link for globally available packages.
    – CPHPython
    Commented Oct 11, 2020 at 23:13
  • this is not showing my projects packages - only global? Good GUI though!
    – v3nt
    Commented Apr 21, 2022 at 8:49
31

For project dependencies use:

npm list --depth=0

For global dependencies use:

npm list -g --depth=0
29

Use:

npm ls

npm list is just an alias for npm ls.

For the extended information, use:

npm la
npm ll

You can always set --depth=0 at the end to get the first level deep.

npm ls --depth=0

You can check development and production packages.

npm ls --only=dev
npm ls --only=prod

To show the info in json format

npm ls --json=true

The default is false

npm ls --json=false

You can insist on long format to show extended information.

npm ls --long=true

You can show parseable output instead of tree view.

npm ls --parseable=true

You can list packages in the global install prefix instead of in the current project.

npm ls --global=true
npm ls -g // shorthand

You can find the full documentation here.

14

As the end of 2021, there are few obvious way to do it. Despite all the other answers are still working, I think an update is needed besides a more defined and complete list of commands possible, and while am I at it, I added some other common commands for whom needs it (install, uninstall, etc.)

# Bare command
npm list
# 'ls' is an alias of list
npm ls
# Don't show dependencies
npm list --depth=0
# Global modules
npm list -g --depth=0
# More info
npm la
npm ll
# Show particular environment packages
npm ls --only=dev
npm ls --only=prod
# Parseable view (tree view)
npm ls --parseable=true

The Node.js documentation is actually pretty well explained regarding the matter. This is a collective list of the main commands.

Before starting, note:


All commands will run the list of installed modules locally. In order to run at the global level, just add a -g flag at the end of the statement.


List installed dependency commands

  1. See the version of all installed npm packages, including their dependencies.

    npm list
    
     >>> /Users/joe/dev/node/cowsay
     └─┬ [email protected]
       ├── [email protected]
       ├─┬ [email protected]
       │ ├── [email protected]
       │ └── [email protected]
       ├─┬ [email protected]
       │ ├── [email protected]
       │ └─┬ [email protected]
       │   └── [email protected]
       └── [email protected]
    
  2. Get only your top-level packages

     npm list --depth=0
    
  3. Get the version of a specific package by specifying its name.

     npm list <package-name>
    
  4. See what's the latest available version of the package on the npm repository

     npm view <package-name> version
    
  5. Install an old version of an npm package using the @ syntax

    npm install <package>@<version>
    npm install [email protected]
    
  6. Listing all the previous versions of a package

    npm view cowsay versions
    [ '1.0.0',
      '1.0.1',
      '1.0.2',
      '1.0.3',
      '1.1.0',
      '1.1.1',
      '1.1.2',
      '1.1.3',
      ....
    ]
    

Update all the Node.js dependencies

  1. Install a new minor or patch release

     npm update
    
  2. Install a new minor or patch release, but do not update file package.json

     npm update --no-save
    
  3. To discover new releases of the packages, this gives you the list of a few outdated packages in one repository that wasn't updated for quite a while

     npm outdated
    

Some of those updates are major releases. Running npm update won't update the version of those. Major releases are never updated in this way, because they (by definition) introduce breaking changes, and npm wants to save you trouble.

To update all packages to a new major version, install the npm-check-updates package globally:

npm install -g npm-check-updates
ncu -u

This will upgrade all the version hints in the package.json file, to dependencies and devDependencies, so npm can install the new major version


Dev Dependency

Install in development dependencies.

npm install <package-name> -D
npm install <package-name> --save-dev # The same as above

Avoid installing those development dependencies in production with

npm install --production

Uninstalling npm packages

npm uninstall <package-name>
npm uninstall -g <package-name> # Globally uninstall
  1. Uninstall a package and remove the reference in the package.json file

      npm uninstall <package-name> -S
      npm uninstall <package-name> --save # The same as above
    

Some commands with global flag examples.

npm list -g
npm list --depth=0 -g
npm list <package-name> -g
npm view <package-name> version -g

Additional Commands

Documentation

12

>= v7.0.0:

npm ls -g

< v7.0.0:

npm ls -g --depth=0

Reference:

npm ls only prints the first level of dependencies by default. You can make it print more of the tree by using --depth=<n> to set a specific depth, or --all to print all of them.

For the latest release, see the npm documentation: npm-ls, depth

11

One way might be to find the root directory of modules using:

npm root

Output:

    /Users/me/repos/my_project/node_modules

And then list that directory...

ls /Users/me/repos/my_project/node_modules

Output:

    grunt                   grunt-contrib-jshint

The user-installed packages in this case are grunt and grunt-contrib-jshint.

6
  • 2
    Why not use the official built-in npm command? npm list -g --depth=0 Commented Jan 16, 2015 at 12:41
  • This way might help the developer understand what's going on under the hood
    – obimod
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 17:35
  • 2
    This isn't 100% correct. When I run the command npm root it tells me: Users/me/node_modules which isn't correct. My node_modules lives somewhere else. I guess it depends on how you install node. I use brew to install my software. I'm guessing this is if you install node from their website using their package installer?
    – pixel 67
    Commented Dec 22, 2016 at 10:35
  • I think it depends on your environment variables. Check out the $NPM... vars set in your enviro. I have a custom setup, using virtualenv and the activate hook to completely rewrite $PATH from scratch depending on what the project uses.
    – obimod
    Commented Jan 19, 2017 at 14:13
  • 2
    For me, my npm broke so I couldn't use the commands. I wanted to do a full reinstall so I needed to know which packages I had installed globally to rebuild.
    – bryjohns
    Commented May 4, 2017 at 20:01
11

Node.js has a concept of local modules and global modules.

Local modules are located within the current project directory.

Global modules are generally located at the user's home directory, though we can change the path where global modules reside.

  1. Lists local modules within current directory: npm list
  2. Lists global modules: npm list --global OR npm list --g // It will list all the top level modules with its dependencies
  3. List only the top level (installed modules) global modules: npm list -g --depth=0
10

Use npm list -g to get all the globally installed npm packages.

To get the npm packages of the current project then you can use "npm list" only.

enter image description here

2
  • But that is exactly what the OP explicitly said they already knew and did not want. The question was how NOT to do that! Be sure, when answering old questions to bring new information that was not already present in one of the existing answer or the question itself.
    – chrslg
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 0:23
  • 1
    Use npm list -g to get all the globally installed npm packages. To get the npm packages of the current project then you can use "npm list" only.
    – Sayan Dey
    Commented Jan 24, 2023 at 10:38
9

I use npm -g outdated --depth=0 to list outdated versions in the global space.

8

To see list of all packages that are installed.

$ npm ls --parseable | awk '{gsub(/\/.*\//,"",$1); print}'| sort -u

show parseable of npm packages list https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/ls#parseable

0
8

You can try NPM Desktop manager:

NPM Desktop manager

With just one click, you can install/uninstall packages in dev or global status.

6

Folder node_modules contains user-installed packages so change the directory to node_modules and list the items. Core Modules are defined in Node.js's source in the lib/ folder.

Example:

cd ~/node_modules
ls

Output:

     express  maxmind-native  node-whois  socket.io  ua-parser-js
     geoip    mongoskin       pdfkit      tail       zeromq
     maxmind  nodemailer      request     ua-parser  zmq
5

For local modules, usenpm list --depth 0.

For global modules, use npm list -g --depth 0.

Example local npm module

Example global npm module

4

Use npm list and filter by contains using grep

Example:

npm list -g | grep name-of-package
4

As a shorthand, you can run:

npm ls -g --depth=0
0

I am using npm version 7.20.3, and it looks like the default depth is 0 already. So in my case, npm list --global showed only one installed package (npm). I knew I had a lot more packages installed, and I was puzzled at the output.

Eventually, I tried the --depth parameter and I was able to see all the packages installed: npm list --global --depth=1 to see the other packages installed (set to say 10 to see the whole dependency tree).

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