Find the version of an installed npm package

Asked 2023-09-20 20:22:48 View 832,346

How can I find the version of an installed Node.js or npm package?

This prints the version of npm itself:

npm -v <package-name>

This prints a cryptic error:

npm version <package-name>

This prints the package version on the registry (i.e., the latest version available):

npm view <package-name> version

How do I get the installed version?

  • On my installation, "npm -v <package-name>" reports the version of npm, itself. To list the latest version of a package in the registry, I have found that "npm view <package-name> version" gets the job done. - anyone
  • npm show shows the latest in npm, not installed - anyone
  • most of the time <module-name> -v should work. However, this depends on whether or not the package developer(s) added cli functionality to their packages. - anyone
  • If you're in the directory that its package.json is in, you can use npm pkg get version. - anyone

Answers

Use npm list for local packages or npm list -g for globally installed packages.

You can find the version of a specific package by passing its name as an argument. For example, npm list grunt will result in:

projectName@projectVersion /path/to/project/folder
└── grunt@0.4.1

Alternatively, you can just run npm list without passing a package name as an argument to see the versions of all your packages:

├─┬ cli-color@0.1.6
│ └── es5-ext@0.7.1
├── coffee-script@1.3.3
├── less@1.3.0
├─┬ sentry@0.1.2
│ ├── file@0.2.1
│ └── underscore@1.3.3
└── uglify-js@1.2.6

You can also add --depth=0 argument to list installed packages without their dependencies.

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • On mac and linux it's nice to add " | grep module_name", to filter the desired module version. Especially when running globally with -g. For example: "npm list -g | grep express" to get the installed express version. - anyone
  • If you want a specific module, you can run it like npm list less-middleware as an example. - anyone
  • Per @guya's tip for *nix based systems, on Windows you can use PowerShell for similar results: | select-string module_name to filter the module. Or, if you're using Git Bash (or just Bash, for that matter), you can use grep. - anyone
  • If you can't remember list, npm ls also works. In fact, many npm commands have aliases, and moreover, if you type a substring of a command, if this substring is unambiguous, it will work also; for instance npm ls, npm list, npm lis are all the same. If you want more verbose output, try npm ll (but probably you want --depth=0 added to it). - anyone
  • The output isn't the best for parsing with a script. Is there really not a way to get an output that is just the package version without having to do something like npm list -g | awk -F@ '/<package>/ { print $2}' - anyone

Another quick way of finding out what packages are installed locally and without their dependencies is to use:

npm list --depth=0

Which gives you something like

├── bower@0.8.6
├── grunt@0.4.1
├── grunt-bower-requirejs@0.4.3
├── grunt-contrib-clean@0.4.1
├── grunt-contrib-coffee@0.7.0
├── grunt-contrib-copy@0.4.1
├── grunt-contrib-imagemin@0.1.4
├── grunt-contrib-jshint@0.1.1
├── grunt-contrib-livereload@0.1.2
├── grunt-contrib-requirejs@0.4.1
├── grunt-regarde@0.1.1
└── grunt-svgmin@0.1.0

Obviously, the same can be done globally with npm list -g --depth=0.

This method is clearer if you have installed a lot of packages.

To find out which packages need to be updated, you can use npm outdated -g --depth=0.

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • it's give me same as without the --depth - anyone
  • it seems they've fixed it in npm 1.4.6. See github.com/npm/npm/issues/4733 - anyone
  • Works great with | grep <package_name> - anyone
  • @ygaradon Correct, but the --depth=0 makes it faster, because it does not have to recursively load dependencies - anyone
  • npm list -g --depth=0 for list modules installed globally - anyone

npm view <package> version - returns the latest available version on the package.

npm list --depth=0 - returns versions of all installed modules without dependencies.

npm list - returns versions of all modules and dependencies.

And lastly to get the Node.js version: node -v

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • npm view <package> version, goes to the npm remote registry, not local filesystem... - anyone
  • @AlexanderMills True, but having it here avoids another search for that. Btw, npm v, npm info and npm show are all alias of npm view. - anyone
  • along the same lines, npm view <package> versions will return all the versions for the package and not just the latest one. - anyone

Use

npm info YOUR_PACKAGE version

E.g.,

npm info grunt version

0.4.5

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • This doesn't show the installed package version, it just shows the latest available version. - anyone
  • Agree with @tanner-semerad. I checked into Docs of npm to clearify it. npm info is alias for npm view and in Docs of npm you will find that standing: This command shows data about a package and prints it to the stream referenced by the outfd config, which defaults to stdout. [...] The default version is "latest" if unspecified. That's way I vote down. - anyone
  • Shows the latest version available, not latest installed. Downvoted. - anyone
  • npm info YOUR_PACKAGE version The only one that worked :) - anyone
  • No, as mentioned this will show the latest version on the registry. This "seems" to work if by chance your local dependency is on the latest version. But if it's not, you will not see the actual installed (older) version with this command. - anyone

From the root of the package do:

node -p "require('./package.json').version"

(So you need to cd into the module's home directory if you are not already there. If you have installed the module with npm install, then it will be under node_modules/<module_name>.)

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • Nice! Quite a bit faster than running "npm list" as the other answers suggest (~1s instead of ~20s) -- at least when you have this code snippet ready! (there should really be an npm plugin to do this...) - anyone
  • or node -p "require('./package.json').version" - anyone
  • This won't get the actual version installed if there is a range delimiter like ^ ~ - anyone
  • I'd like to oppose @geedew 's comment. This answer suggests to be run in the root folder of the installed module. In the package.json of the installed module you will(!) find the actually installed version. - anyone

I just used

npm list | grep <package name>

and it worked great.

On Windows, run:

npm list | find <package name>

In PowerShell run:

npm list | sls <package name>

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • find version doesn't work for me - even with quoted string, but powershell works well - anyone
  • For Windows users: npm list -g --depth=0 |find "<package name>" Note the double quotes - anyone

WARNING: This answer shows the latest available version of a module in npm, not the currently installed version locally.


It's very simple.. Just type the below line

npm view <package-name> version

Example

npm view redux version

I have version 7.2.0 of Redux.

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • BEWARE: This is NOT showing the installed version. It shows the latest available version on npm. - anyone

For local packages:

npm list --depth=0

For global packages:

npm list -g --depth=0

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

You can see file package.json to see installed packages versions.

To get the list on the command line,

npm ls

It will give you all installed packages in a project with their respective versions.

For a particular package version,

npm ls <package-name>

For example,

npm ls next

It will return version

-- next@10.1.3

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

Combining some of the above answers and produces a super simple and super quick lookup.

Run from the project root. There isn’t any need to cd into any folder, just one line:

node -p "require('SOMEPACKAGE/package.json').version"

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • This gives me the error "Package subpath './package.json' is not defined by "exports" in /path/to/SOMEPACKAGE/package.json". Did this used to work until a new node version broke it, or am I doing something wrong? - anyone

If you agree to install jq, you can use the JSON output of npm list:

npm -j ls <package-name> | jq -r .version

Or, if you want to be verbose:

npm --json list <package-name> | jq --raw-output '.version'

For instance:

npm -j ls ghost | jq -r .version

Output:

0.4.2

Also, the JSON format is slightly different for global packages, so you'll need to change the query.

For instance:

npm -j -g ls | jq -r .dependencies.ghost.version

Output:

0.4.2

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

You can also check the version with this command:

npm info <package name> version

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • Again, it shows the latest version available in the package registry not the version of the currently installed package. - anyone
  • @DawidFerenczy Agree with its show only latest version like npm info httpaction - anyone

I've seen some very creative answers, but you can just do this (for global packages add the --global switch):

npm ls package

Example:

npm ls babel-cli

Output:

`-- babel-cli@6.26.0

The npm documentation says that npm -ls

This command will print to stdout all the versions of packages that are installed, as well as their dependencies, in a tree-structure.

NPM documentation

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • '..as well as their dependencies, in a tree-structure' - beware of structure hell (: - anyone

If you are brave enough (and have Node.js installed), you can always do something like:

echo "console.log(require('./package.json').version);" | node

This will print the version of the current package. You can also modify it to go insane, like this:

echo "eval('var result='+require('child_process').execSync('npm version',{encoding:'utf8'})); console.log(result.WHATEVER_PACKAGE_NAME);" | node

That will print the version of WHATEVER_PACKAGE_NAME package, that is seen by npm version.

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • node -e "console.log(require('./package.json').version);" - anyone

To list local packages with the version number use:

npm ls --depth=0

To list global packages with the version number use:

npm ls -g --depth=0

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

To see all the installed packages locally or globally, use these commands:

  1. npm list for local packages or npm list -g for globally installed packages.
  2. npm list --depth=0
  3. npm list | sls <package name>
  4. node -v

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

npm list --depth 0 is the command which shows all libraries with version, but you can use npm-check.

npm-check is a good library to manage all those things regarding the version system event. It will show libraries versions, new version updates, and unused versions, and many more.

To install it, just run:

npm install -g npm-check

And simply run

npm-check

Check the screenshot. It is showing everything about the package versions, new version updates, and unused versions.

Enter image description here

It works globally too. Give it a try.

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

I've built a tool that does exactly that - qnm.

qnm - A simple CLI utility for querying the node_modules directory.

Install it using:

npm i --global qnm

And run:

qnm [module]

For example:

qnm lodash

Output:

lodash
├── 4.17.5
├─┬ cli-table2
│ └── 3.10.1
└─┬ karma
  └── 3.10.1

Which means we have lodash installed in the root of the node_modules folder folder and two other copies in the node_modules folder of cli-table2 and karma.

It's really fast and has some nice features, like tab completion and match search.

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

Try with:

npm list --depth 1 --global packagename

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

npm list package-name gives the currently installed version

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

Here's a portable Unix (using grep and sed) one-liner that returns the version string of a globally-installed npm package (remove the g from -pg to query local packages instead):

npm ll -pg --depth=0 grunt | grep -o "@.*:" | sed 's/.$//; s/^.//'

Output:

0.4.5
  • the npm ll outputs a parsable string formatted like: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm:npm@2.14.8:;
  • the grep command extracts the value between @ and :, inclusive;
  • the sed command removes the surrounding characters.

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • With newer versions of npm, there is no trailing colon, so the pipeline is just | grep -o "@.*" | sed 's/^.//'. - anyone

This is a simple question and should have a simpler answer than what I see in previous answers.

To see the installed npm packages with their version, the command is npm ls --depth=0, which, by default, displays what is installed locally. To see the globally installed packages, add the -global argument: npm ls --depth=0 -global.

--depth=0 returns a list of installed packages without their dependencies, which is what you're wanting to do most of the time.

ls is the name of the command, and list is an alias for ls.

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

I added this to my .bashrc file:

function npmv {
    case $# in # Number of arguments passed
    0) v="$(npm -v)" ; # Store output from npm -v in variable
        echo "NPM version is: $v"; # Can't use single quotes
                                   # ${v} would also work
    ;;
    1) s="$(npm list --depth=0 $1 | grep $1 | cut -d @ -f 2)";
       echo "$s";
    ;;
    2) case "$2" in # Second argument
        g) #global| # Syntax to compare bash string to literal
             s="$(npm list --depth=0 -g $1 | grep $1 | cut -d @ -f 2)";
        echo "$s";
        ;;
        l) #Latest
             npm view $1 version; # 'npm info $1 version' does the same thing
       ;;
       *) echo 'Invalid arguments';
       ;;
       esac;
    ;;
    *) echo 'Invalid arguments';
    ;;
    esac;
}
export -f npmv

Now all I have to do is type:

  • npmv for the version of npm, for example, NPM version is: 4.2.0
  • npmv <package-name> for the local version, for example, 0.8.08
  • npmv <package-name> g for global version, for example, 0.8.09
  • npmv <package-name> l for latest version, for example, 0.8.10

Note -d on the cut command means delimit by, followed by @, and then f means field. The '2' means the second field since there will be one either side of the @ symbol.

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

If you'd like to check for a particular module installed globally, on Unix-like systems use:

npm list -g --depth=0 | grep <module_name>

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

I am using

npm list --depth=0 | grep module_name@

It brings me results like this:

module_name@2.1033.0

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

Access the package.json file

You can access the package.json or bower.json file of the package with:

Windows (with notepad installed):

notepad ./node_modules/vue-template-compiler/package.json`

This will open the package.json in Notepad which has the version number of the packageName you included in the command.

Mac/Linux:

cat node_modules/prettier/package.json | grep version

This will output something like this:

screenshot of command output

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • Not only are there much easier ways to do this, the version you have specified in your package.json may not actually be the installed version due to semver range notations. That is, a dependency may be specified as version ^1.3.0, but that can mean anything from version 1.3.0 to 1.99.99 - anyone
  • On Windows only, presumably? What version / edition was this tried on? Please respond by editing (changing) your answer, not here in comments (without "Edit:", "Update:", or similar - the answer should appear as if it was written today). - anyone
  • Hi @PeterMortensen, I've update the answer with few more details. Hope this helps!! - anyone

You may try this: npm show {package} version shows the latest package version. And if your package is outdated, npm outdated will show it with version info.

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • The OP was asking about the version of the currently installed package, not the latest version available in the package registry. - anyone

You can use npm view [module] version, npm info [module] version, npm show [module] version or npm v [module] version to check the version on an installed npm module.

Let's suppose my Grunt module version is the 0.4.5:

npm view grunt version => 0.4.5
npm info grunt version => 0.4.5
npm show grunt version => 0.4.5
npm v grunt version    => 0.4.5

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • All of those show the newest available version, not the currently installed version - anyone

To get only the installed version number, try:

npm list --depth=0 packagename | grep packagename | cut -d'@' -f2

E.g., the installed version number of PM2:

npm list --depth=0 pm2 | grep pm2 | cut -d'@' -f2

And to list globally installed packages, add the -g flag to the npm list command, eg:

npm list -g --depth=0 packagename | grep packagename | cut -d'@' -f2

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

We can use

npm info (your module name) version

Answered   2023-09-20 20:22:48

  • This shows the latest version available, not the version in the local directory. - anyone
  • @christianbundy you can use npm list --depth=0 | grep uuid - anyone
  • I had to use npm list --depth=0 | grep uuid | awk '{ print $2; }' | cut -d '@' -f 2, but yeah, this works as long as it's a top-level dependency. I don't think that's always the case though, based on the original question. - anyone
  • Shouldn't there be a space after "promise"? - anyone