How to list npm user-installed packages?

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

  • npm-gui (npm)
  • npm-gui (GitHub)

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


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

ls `npm root -g`

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

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npm outdated -g --depth=0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.