remove-node-modules

A Node.js script that finds and removes every node_modules folder under a root directory to free disk space. No external dependencies.

Use case

You have a root folder (e.g. code/) that contains many projects, each in its own subfolder. Every project has a node_modules directory, which can use a lot of disk space. Running this script from the root folder (or by passing the root path) will recursively find and delete all node_modules directories under it, so you can reclaim space and reinstall dependencies later with npm install in each project when needed.

Example: A code/ folder with 20 projects, each with its own node_modules — run the script once from code/ to remove all 20 (or more, if any project has nested node_modules).

Features

• Recursively scans from a root path and removes every node_modules folder
• Dry-run mode (--dry-run) — lists what would be removed without deleting
• Skips symlinks to avoid infinite loops
• Does not delete the script’s own node_modules (the one in this project)
• No npm dependencies — uses only Node.js built-in fs and path

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v14 or later recommended, for fs.rmSync with recursive)

Steps to run

1. Run from the root folder (e.g. your code/ folder)

If you want to clean all projects under a folder, cd into that folder and run the script by path:

cd /path/to/code
node /path/to/remove-node-module/remove-node-modules.js

This uses the current directory as the root and removes every node_modules under it.

2. Run with an explicit root path

You can pass the root folder as the first argument from anywhere:

node /path/to/remove-node-module/remove-node-modules.js /path/to/code

3. Dry run first (recommended)

To see which folders would be removed without deleting anything:

node remove-node-modules.js /path/to/code --dry-run

Then run without --dry-run to actually delete.

4. Run from inside this project

From the project directory:

cd /path/to/remove-node-module
node remove-node-modules.js /path/to/code
# or use current directory
node remove-node-modules.js .

Options

Option / Argument	Description
(first argument)	Root directory to scan. Default: current working directory (process.cwd()).
--dry-run	Only list node_modules paths that would be removed; do not delete.

Notes

• The script never deletes the node_modules folder inside this project (where the script lives).
• After running, restore dependencies in any project with npm install (or yarn / pnpm) when you need to work on it again.