How to tell if npm package was installed globally or locally

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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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"

https://i.stack.imgur.com/S74XQ.png

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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.

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