n

# `n` – Interactively Manage Your Node.js Versions

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Node.js version management: no subshells, no profile setup, no convoluted API, just **simple**.

![usage animation](https://nimit.io/images/n/n.gif)

- [`n` – Interactively Manage Your Node.js Versions](#n--interactively-manage-your-nodejs-versions)
  - [Supported Platforms](#supported-platforms)
  - [Installation](#installation)
    - [Third Party Installers](#third-party-installers)
    - [Replacing a previous node install](#replacing-a-previous-node-install)
  - [Installing Node.js Versions](#installing-nodejs-versions)
  - [Specifying Node.js Versions](#specifying-nodejs-versions)
  - [Removing Versions](#removing-versions)
  - [Using Downloaded Node.js Versions Without Reinstalling](#using-downloaded-nodejs-versions-without-reinstalling)
  - [Preserving npm](#preserving-npm)
  - [Miscellaneous](#miscellaneous)
  - [Custom Mirror](#custom-mirror)
  - [Custom Architecture](#custom-architecture)
  - [Optional Environment Variables](#optional-environment-variables)
  - [How It Works](#how-it-works)

## Supported Platforms

`n` is supported on macOS, Linux, including with Windows Subsystem for Linux, and various other unix-like systems.
It is written as a BASH script but does not require you to use BASH as your command shell.

`n` does not work in native shells on Microsoft Windows (like PowerShell), or Git for Windows BASH, or with the Cygwin DLL.

## Installation

If you already have Node.js installed, an easy way to install `n` is using `npm`:

    npm install -g n

The default root location used when running `n` is `/usr/local` where a normal user does not have write permission. You may strike the same sort of permission error when using npm to install global modules, like the above command. You have three main options:

1) change the ownership of the relevant directories to yourself (see below)
2) tell `n` to use a custom location where you do have write permissions (see `N_PREFIX`)
3) put `sudo` in front of the command to run it as super user

`n` caches Node.js versions in subdirectory `n/versions`. The _active_ Node.js version is installed in subdirectories `bin`, `include`, `lib`, and `share`.

To take ownership of the system directories (option 1):

    # make cache folder (if missing) and take ownership
    sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/n
    sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/n
    # make sure the required folders exist (safe to execute even if they already exist)
    sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin /usr/local/lib /usr/local/include /usr/local/share
    # take ownership of Node.js install destination folders