How can I change the cache path for npm (or completely disable the cache) on Windows?

Question

You can change npm cache folder using the npm command line. (see https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v6/using-npm/config#cache)

So you might want to try this command :

> npm config set cache C:\Devel\nodejs\npm-cache --global 

You can also set an environment variable with export npm_config_cache=/path/to/cache (Unix) or set npm_config_cache=C:\path\to\cache (Win) as an alternative to npm config set (this is true for all config options in npm).

---

For anyone using docker you can add the env var at runtime with:

docker run -e npm_config_cache=/path/to/cache mydockerimage:tag

You can also do following:

For having cache path as you wish, for a single package while installing it:

npm install packageName --cache path/to/some/folder

For having cache path as you wish, for all the packages in package.json:

Just be in the directory where package.json is as usual and do

npm install --cache path/to/some/folder

You may not find this in npm documentation but i have tried it with npm 6 and it works. Looks like it works since npm 5 [Refer: How to specify cache folder in npm5 on install command?

In Windows you can simply cd to the desired cache folder and do npm set cache --global