Search code examples
macosnpmsudo

If I've been using "sudo npm" for a while, what's the best way to move all the stuff already installed as root to my home directory?

I'd like to break the bad habit of installing npm global packages by using sudo.

I already have seen answers about how to avoid sudo by switching to using your home directory, like this: Ensure npm install -g does not need sudo?

But I've already installed a bunch of stuff globally using sudo. I want to take all that stuff with me that's installed as root into my new home directory for npm. Is there a way to do that, or am I essentially starting over from scratch having to re-install everything that I had installed before?

Solution

  • Having not seen a better answer yet, I went forward with doing this:

    npm list -g --depth=0

    ...to see what I already had installed globally. Then I followed the steps here: https://docs.npmjs.com/getting-started/fixing-npm-permissions

    ...to set up npm in my home directory, then I reinstalled everything (which turned out not to be a huge amount of stuff) I got from "npm list -g --depth=0".

    So far, so good. I'd still be curious to know if there's a better approach.