npm command to uninstall or prune unused packages in Node.js

Question

Is there a way to simply uninstall all unused (undeclared) dependencies from a Node.js project (ones that are no longer defined in my package.json.) When I update my application I like to have the unreferenced packages removed automatically.

Answer 1

Note: Recent npm versions do this automatically when running npm install if package-locks are enabled, so this is not necessary except for removing development packages with the --production flag.

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Run npm prune to remove modules not listed in package.json.

From npm help prune:

This command removes "extraneous" packages. If a package name is provided, then only packages matching one of the supplied names are removed.

Extraneous packages are packages that are not listed on the parent package's dependencies list.

If the --production flag is specified, this command will remove the packages specified in your devDependencies.