Delete node_modules folder recursively from a specified path using command line

Try https://github.com/voidcosmos/npkill

npx npkill

it will find all node_modules and let you remove them selectively.

Improving on the accepted answer:

find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -exec rm -rf '{}' +

I found that the command above would run a very long time to fetch all folders and then run a delete command, to make the command resumable I'd suggest using \; and to see progress of the command being run use -print to see the directory being deleted.

Note: You must first cd into the root directory and then run the command or instead of find . use find {project_directory}

To delete folders one by one:

find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -exec rm -rf '{}' \;

To delete folders one by one and print the folder being deleted:

find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -print -exec rm -rf '{}' \;

Edit:

For the people who like an interactive way of doing this, refer to @jeckep answer, run this in the directory you wish to prune:

npx npkill

Print out a list of directories to be deleted:

find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune

Delete directories from the current working directory:

find . -name 'node_modules' -type d -prune -exec rm -rf '{}' +

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Alternatively you can use trash (brew install trash) for staged deletion:

find . -name node_modules -type d -prune -exec trash {} +