Find and Remove Old node_modules on Mac

Old node_modules folders can consume gigabytes across projects you no longer actively use.

CleanMyMac CLI can find them across your development folders and group results by project.

Find old node_modules

Run:

cleanmymac purge

By default, CleanMyMac CLI scans common project locations:

~/Projects
~/Code
~/dev
~/GitHub
~/Workspace

cleanmymac purge ~/Projects

Or one project:

cleanmymac purge ~/Projects/my-project

In addition to node_modules, purge can detect generated project artifacts such as:

node_modules
.next
.turbo
target
.build
.venv
venv
__pycache__
Pods
DerivedData
vendor
cmake-build-*

Results are grouped by project so you can review what each artifact belongs to.

Artifacts older than seven days are preselected. Newer artifacts remain visible but unchecked.

Always inspect the selected project and path before confirming cleanup.

purge targets generated artifacts, not project source code.

Protect an active project when needed:

cleanmymac ignore add ~/Projects/important-project

cleanmymac analyze ~/Projects

Use this before cleanup when you want to understand which projects consume the most storage.

brew install --cask macpaw/taps/cleanmymac-cli

Then:

cleanmymac purge