How do I completely uninstall Node.js, and reinstall from beginning (Mac OS X)

To remove:

brew uninstall node;

# or `brew uninstall --force node` which removes all versions

brew cleanup;

rm -f /usr/local/bin/npm /usr/local/lib/dtrace/node.d;

rm -rf ~/.npm;

To install:

brew install node;

which node # => /usr/local/bin/node

export NODE_PATH='/usr/local/lib/node_modules' # <--- add this ~/.bashrc

You can run brew info node for more details regarding your node installs.

4 years ago

Apparently, there was a /Users/myusername/local folder that contained a include with node and lib with node and node_modules. How and why this was created instead of in my /usr/local folder, I do not know.
Deleting these local references fixed the phantom v0.6.1-pre. If anyone has an explanation, I'll choose that as the correct answer.
EDIT:
You may need to do the additional instructions as well:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/{lib/node{,/.npm,_modules},bin,share/man}/{npm,node*,man1/node*}

which is the equivalent of (same as above)...

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/npm /usr/local/share/man/man1/node /usr/local/lib/dtrace/node.d ~/.npm ~/.node-gyp 

or (same as above) broken down...
To completely uninstall node + npm is to do the following:
go to /usr/local/lib and delete any node and node_modules
go to /usr/local/include and delete any node and node_modules directory
if you installed with brew install node, then run brew uninstall node in your terminal
check your Home directory for any local or lib or include folders, and delete any node or node_modules from there
go to /usr/local/bin and delete any node executable
You may also need to do:

sudo rm -rf /opt/local/bin/node /opt/local/include/node /opt/local/lib/node_modules

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/npm /usr/local/share/man/man1/node.1 /usr/local/lib/dtrace/node.d

Additionally, NVM modifies the PATH variable in $HOME/.bashrc, which must be reverted manually.
Then download nvm and follow the instructions to install node. The latest versions of node come with npm, I believe, but you can also reinstall that as well.

4 years ago

NVM (Node version manager) is a portable solution for managing multiple versions of node

nvm uninstall v4.1.0

> nvm install v8.1.2

> nvm use v8.1.2

> nvm list

         v4.2.0

         v5.8.0

        v6.11.0

->       v8.1.2

         system

4 years ago