Old node_modules folders

Every JavaScript project you've ever cloned keeps its node_modules, often 200 MB–2 GB each. Forty old projects can easily hold 10–20 GB.

Find them

npx diskdiet scan --only node_modules

diskdiet searches your home folder (skipping hidden folders and ~/Library), and reports how many node_modules folders there are and which projects haven't changed for 30 days.

Remove the old ones

npx diskdiet clean --only node_modules

You'll see each folder, its size and how long the project has been untouched, then be asked:

node_modules, biggest first:
  ~/code/old-landing/node_modules      1.2 GB   unchanged for 10 months
  ~/code/hackathon-2025/node_modules   900 MB   unchanged for 8 months
  ...
Free about 3.5 GB? [y/N]

Bringing one back is just npm install (or pnpm i, yarn, bun i) in that project.

Want an undo?

npx diskdiet clean --only node_modules --trash

moves the folders to the Trash (Recycle Bin on Windows) instead of deleting them, so you can put one back. The space is freed when you empty the Trash.

Keep some

npx diskdiet clean --only node_modules --keep ~/code/shop/node_modules
npx diskdiet clean --only node_modules --projects ~/code      # only look under ~/code
npx diskdiet clean --only node_modules --older-than 90d       # only really old projects

In the desktop app and VS Code you untick the projects to keep.

Compared with npkill

npkill finds node_modules under the current folder and lets you delete them one by one. diskdiet also judges projects by when you last touched them, covers your whole home folder in one go, lists Rust and Maven target folders too, and handles every other cache (npm, Docker, Gradle…) in the same run.