stale-modules

Find node_modules folders in projects you haven't touched in a while, and reclaim the disk space — through a fast, friendly interactive CLI.

Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Old side-projects quietly hoard gigabytes in node_modules. stale-modules scans a folder full of projects, finds the ones you haven't worked on in a while, shows you how much space each is wasting, and lets you delete the node_modules with a single confirmation. Your source code is never touched — a quick npm install brings any project back to life.

Quick start

No install needed:

npx stale-modules

Then just answer the prompts.

Usage

npx stale-modules                 # asks which folder to scan
npx stale-modules --base ~/code   # scan ~/code directly, skip the folder question

What happens

1. Which folder? — point it at the directory that holds your projects (e.g. ~/code).
2. How many days of inactivity = "stale"? — e.g. 30. Projects untouched for at least that long show up.
3. Pick what to delete — a checklist of stale projects, each with its node_modules size and how long it's been idle, biggest first.
4. Confirm — nothing is deleted until you explicitly say yes.

Keyboard controls

Every screen shows its controls, but for reference:

| Key | Action | | --- | --- | | ↑ / ↓ | Move up / down the list | | Space | Select / deselect the highlighted project | | a | Select / deselect all | | Enter | Confirm and continue | | Esc | Cancel and quit (nothing is deleted) |

Flags

• --base <path> — skip the folder prompt and scan this path directly.

How "inactive" is determined

stale-modules looks at the most recent modification time of your actual source files (ignoring node_modules, .git, and build output like dist, build, .next, .cache, .turbo).

It deliberately does not use git commit history. Plenty of people work locally for a long time without committing, so a project's real activity is better reflected by when its files were last touched than by when they were last pushed.

Hidden/dot directories (.npm, .npm-global, .cache, .nvm, …) are skipped entirely — they hold global installs, caches, and tooling, not projects, so their node_modules are never offered for deletion.

Safety

• Only ever deletes directories literally named node_modules. Every deletion is guarded — any path whose final segment isn't node_modules is refused.
• Nothing is deleted without an explicit confirmation step (which defaults to No).
• Deleting node_modules never touches your source code. It's fully recoverable — just run npm install in the project again.

Local install (for development)

Clone the repo and link it so the stale-modules (and short alias nmclean) commands work from anywhere:

git clone https://github.com/danilashk/stale-modules.git
cd stale-modules
npm install
npm link          # creates global `stale-modules` / `nmclean` commands

nmclean --base ~/code   # run from any folder

npm unlink -g stale-modules   # undo when you're done

Requirements

• Node.js >= 18
• Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows (verified in CI)

License

MIT