How to clear the global npx cache

javascript

I have been using npx a lot lately, especially whenever I want to use a CLI tool. It is an excellent alternative to installing packages globally since it installs them in a temporary cache instead.

Even though it is installed in a temporary location, I figured it is a good idea to clear the cache once in a while. To do so, we can run the following command on a Mac:

rm -rf ~/.npm/_npx

Bash

And if we were on a Windows machine:

del /q /s %LocalAppData%/npm-cache/_npx

Bash

If npx cache is not located at one of these locations and we want to find the exact location for it, we can also use the following command to do so.

npm config get cache

Bash

And that is it. The command will clear the global npx cache and we can then install a new version if we want to do so or just have a clean slate to begin with. If you have any questions, do let us know in the comments below.

Saransh Kataria

Born in Delhi, India, Saransh Kataria is the brain behind Wisdom Geek. Currently, Saransh is a software developer at a reputed firm in Austin, and he likes playing with new technologies to explore different possibilities. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science. He also shares his passion for sharing knowledge as the community lead at Facebook Developer Circle Delhi, NCR which is a developer community in Delhi, India.