205

I am installing grunt, node, npm, bower, and grunt-cli on windows7.

The instructions say i should run the install commands with -g flag for global.

How can I check if I used the -g flag when i installed. It will take a lot of time to uninstall them and reinstall.

AndraeRay
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6 Answers6

292

Use the list command with the -g flag to see all packages that are installed globally:

npm list -g

To check if a specific package is installed globally, you can provide the name of package (grunt in this case) as seen below:

npm list -g grunt

Or you can use grep to filter on package names:

npm list -g | grep grunt

Source: https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/ls

yzorg
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Muntaser Ahmed
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    For a boolean "installed or not?" check, try using `--depth`. For example: `npm list --depth 1 --global csats-mturk > /dev/null 2>&1`.[Here's a more detailed example](https://gitlab.com/snippets/3883). – Adam Monsen Mar 19 '15 at 23:20
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    @AdamMonsen , I was looking for _top level_ installation of tern. I used `npm list --depth 0 --global tern` to check if tern was installed globally as if `npm install -g tern` – Sudhi Mar 16 '16 at 13:47
  • `grep` seems like a fairly reliable solution given the comments about npm exiting with an error due to unmet dependencies – myol Mar 19 '18 at 00:31
42
npm list --depth 1 --global packagename > /dev/null 2>&1

You can then check the exit status to see if it's installed or not. Thanks Adam Monsen.

Flimm
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    thanks for `--depth 1`! that's what I was looking for. Actually I'm using now `npm list --depth 0 -g` – revelt Jul 28 '16 at 09:13
  • For some reason `$?` always returns `1` for me, even if the package IS installed or NOT installed. – Katie Oct 05 '16 at 18:41
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    WARNING: npm will always exit with an error if any of your packages have unmet dependencies, **even if the package is installed**. @Kayvar this is why npm is returning 1 for you. – Codebling Oct 10 '16 at 20:23
22

To check if a specific package is installed globally execute:

npm list -g [package-name]

Let's take "grunt" as an example. If it is installed globally, you should see something like this

C:\data\tryout\test1>npm list -g grunt
C:\Users\xxxxxxx\AppData\Roaming\npm
└── grunt@0.4.5

If it is not installed globally, you should see something like this

C:\data\tryout\test1>npm list -g grunt
C:\Users\xxxxxxx\AppData\Roaming\npm
└── (empty)

To check if a specific package is installed locally you can execute the same commands as above but without the -g parameter.

source: How to check if npm package was installed globally or locally.

mvermand
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8

You can list all global packages with the command:

npm ls -g

Or check for a specific package with:

npm ls -g [package-name]

For example: npm ls -g @angular/cli

Mwiza
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6

In Windows we use the following command to find out whether the package is installed or not. Please refer image for details.

npm list -g | find "create"

sample result

SHARATH P
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0

From your package with sindresorhus/is-installed-globally

https://github.com/sindresorhus/is-installed-globally

Usage:

const isInstalledGlobally = require('is-installed-globally');

// With `npm install your-package`
console.log(isInstalledGlobally);
//=> false

// With `npm install --global your-package`
console.log(isInstalledGlobally);
//=> true

I found this useful when I had to distribute prebuilt files with my package: How to publish a npm package with distribution files? With this package, I can check if the installation is local or global, and then use relative paths for local installations, as shown here.

Ciro Santilli Путлер Капут 六四事
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