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# Change default NodeJS - npm and npm-cache directory on Windows
- URL: https://blog.jsinh.in/change-default-nodejs-npm-and-npm-cache-directory-on-windows/
- Published: 2016-11-03T11:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-07T15:05:37.000Z
- Author: Jsinh
- Tags: #Import 2026-10-04 19:16

Developers mostly like to take control of your machine and how things work on it. This time I decided to take control where NodeJS would restore my global packages and manages package cache.

In this case I am referring to Windows 10 particularly as that is my core development platform.

By default NodeJS gets installed in `C:\Program Files\nodejs` folder (assuming you are installing nodejs - Windows x64 version).

After installation lets say I wish to install `http-server` package so I can run static HTTP server from any folder.

As soon as I do `npm install http-server -g`, this start adding package and it's dependency packages into `C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\npm` and `C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache` folder.

So I wish to shift these two folders to different and custom location e.g: `D:\nodejs`. Let's do it!

**Step:**  
Edit NPMRC file at follow location: `C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\npmrc`  
This should be containing one like for path / prefix:

```
prefix=${APP_DATA}\npm

```

Change it to new location:

```
prefix=D:\nodejs\npm

```

**Step:** Edit user's NPMRC file at following location: `C:\Users\usernamee\.npmrc`  
Replace following path fragment for all cases: `C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming` with `D:\nodejs`

Following steps will change the default path for `npm` folder.

**Step:** Run the following command at command prompt to change the default path for `npm-cache`

```
npm config set cache D:\nodejs\npm-cache --global

```

**Step:** Change the path for npm set at user environment variable level.  
Open Environment variable edit dialog: Right click on Windows icon > System > Advanced system settings > Environment Variables > Top section "User variables for username.

Select `Path` variable and click `Edit`  
Here edit npm default location to custom path as `D:\nodejs\npm`

That's it, next time when you run `npm install anything -g` it would restore those packages and setup npm cache at your custom location.

Happy coding!