I recently tried to update all of my npm installed packages by running npm -g update and I got this error:

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Error: Refusing to delete: /usr/local/bin/npm

Wat. This error shows up when npm tries to update itself.

After a moment of googling for answers, I found this github issue. Yep, I have installed node via brew, and it comes with npm. As it turns out, there’s a problem with npm when it is installed via brew. The official fix is to uninstall the homebrew installed node, download node from the official website, and install that instead. But I love homebrew, so I scrolled down the issue and found an acceptable workaround:

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$ npm update -gf
$ brew unlink node && brew link --overwrite node

Adding -f to npm -g update makes it a forced update. With that flag, npm will no longer refuse to delete /usr/local/bin/npm. Well, at least that’s how I understand it. Be careful though, as it’s not a safe thing to do. But I like to live dangerously, so yeah. In case you want to play safe, don’t add the -f flag on npm -g update. Instead, only forcefully update those packages that won’t update without the -f flag. In my case, that’s npm.

The second line is to fix the broken homebrew links. And voila! I now have shiny new things in my global node_modules, without resorting to removing the homebrew installed node.