How do I uninstall nodejs installed from pkg (Mac OS X)?

Question

I installed NodeJS from pkg file on my Mac. Now I need to uninstall it. Tell me please how to do it. I tried to remove files from this list:

lsbom -f -l -s -pf /var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.pkg.bom

But node is still on my computer.

Answer 1

I ran:

lsbom -f -l -s -pf /var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.pkg.bom \
| while read i; do
  sudo rm /usr/local/${i}
done
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/node \
     /usr/local/lib/node_modules \
     /var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.*

Coded into gist 2697848

Update It seems the receipts .bom file name may have changed so you may need to replace org.nodejs.pkg.bom with org.nodejs.node.pkg.bom in the above. The gist has been updated accordingly.

Answer 2

In order to delete the 'native' node.js installation, I have used the method suggested in previous answers sudo npm uninstall npm -g, with additional sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/node /usr/local/lib/node_modules /var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.*.

BUT, I had to also delete the following two directories:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/include/node /Users/$USER/.npm

Only after that I could install node.js with Homebrew.

Answer 3

A decent way to uninstall node installed from pkg

See what is in db/receipts

ls /var/db/receipts/org.node*

Peek into the relevant bom files noting the paths listed

• lsbom -f -l -s -pf /var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.node.pkg.bom
• lsbom -f -l -s -pf /var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.npm.pkg.bom

Do the deletes. Use prefix on remove depending on the paths above.

lsbom -f -l -s -pf /var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.node.pkg.bom | while read i; do sudo rm /${i}; done

lsbom -f -l -s -pf /var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.npm.pkg.bom | while read i; do sudo rm /${i}; done

Remove the remaining folders

• sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/node_modules
• sudo rm -rf /var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.*

Check it is really gone

• which node
• which npm

Answer 4

I took AhrB's list, while appended three more files. Here is the full list I have used:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/node /usr/local/lib/node_modules /var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.*
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/include/node /Users/$USER/.npm
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/node
sudo rm /usr/local/share/man/man1/node.1
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/npm
sudo rm /usr/local/share/systemtap/tapset/node.stp
sudo rm /usr/local/lib/dtrace/node.d
# In case you want to reinstall node with HomeBrew:
# brew install node

Answer 5

Use npm to uninstall. Just running sudo npm uninstall npm -g removes all the files. To get rid of the extraneous stuff like bash pathnames run this (from nicerobot's answer):

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/node \ /usr/local/lib/node_modules \ /var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.*

Answer 6

This is the full list of commands I used (Many thanks to the posters above):

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/node /usr/local/lib/node_modules /var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.*
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/include/node /Users/$USER/.npm
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/node
sudo rm /usr/local/share/man/man1/node.1
brew install node

Answer 7

Following previous posts, here is the full list I used

sudo npm uninstall npm -g
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/node /usr/local/lib/node_modules /var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.*
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/include/node /Users/$USER/.npm
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/node
sudo rm /usr/local/share/man/man1/node.1
sudo rm /usr/local/lib/dtrace/node.d
brew install node

Answer 8

A little convenience script expanding on previous answers.

#!/bin/bash

# Uninstall node.js
# 
# Options:
#
# -d Actually delete files, otherwise the script just _prints_ a command to delete.
# -p Installation prefix. Default /usr/local
# -f BOM file. Default /var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.pkg.bom

CMD="echo sudo rm -fr"
BOM_FILE="/var/db/receipts/org.nodejs.pkg.bom"
PREFIX="/usr/local"

while getopts "dp:f:" arg; do
    case $arg in
        d)
            CMD="sudo rm -fr"
            ;;
        p)
            PREFIX=$arg
            ;;
        f)
            BOM_FILE=$arg
            ;;
    esac
done

lsbom -f -l -s -pf ${BOM_FILE} \
    | while read i; do
          $CMD ${PREFIX}/${i}
      done

$CMD ${PREFIX}/lib/node \
     ${PREFIX}/lib/node_modules \
     ${BOM_FILE}

Save it to file and run with:

# bash filename.sh

Answer 9

The following worked after trial and error, and these directories were not writable so, I removed them and finally was able to get node & npm replaced.

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/share/systemtap
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/share/doc/node
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/Cellar/node/9.11.1
brew install node
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/node-9.11.1.high_sierra.bottle.tar.gz
Already downloaded: /Users/xxx/Library/Caches/Homebrew/node-9.11.1.high_sierra.bottle.tar.gz
==> Pouring node-9.11.1.high_sierra.bottle.tar.gz
==> Caveats
Bash completion has been installed to:
  /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d
==> Summary
  /usr/local/Cellar/node/9.11.1: 5,125 files, 49.7MB

node -v
v9.11.1
npm -v
5.6.0

Answer 10

You can use my forked gist: https://gist.github.com/ryangatchalian912/75c6894c3f3143fef366d25eb63437ab

Copy and paste these commands into your Terminal:

curl -ksO https://gist.githubusercontent.com/ryangatchalian912/75c6894c3f3143fef366d25eb63437ab/raw/59c25be64e5555415726bfa824ae41ae1b4539b9/uninstall-node.sh
chmod +x ./uninstall-node.sh
sudo ./uninstall-node.sh > tester.txt
rm uninstall-node.sh

It works on Mac OSX Big Sur (11.4+).

Answer 11

If you installed Node from their website, try this:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/{bin/{node,npm},lib/node_modules/npm,lib/node,share/man/*/node.*}

This worked for me, but if you have any questions, my GitHub is 'mnafricano'.

Answer 12

I also installed via .pkg, I had a lot of permission errors lately and wanted to use nvm so had to uninstall the current version. Found the below script from here

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/{bin/{node,npm},lib/node_modules/npm,lib/node,share/man/*/node.*}

Answer 13

I had to remove the following files too since brew complained in install later after manually removing all files.

/usr/local/share/doc/node/gdbinit

/usr/local/share/systemtap/tapset/node.stp

and then do the following

brew install node 

brew link node