Bower: "command not found" after installation

Question

I seem to be getting the following when I execute npm install bower -g

/usr/local/share/npm/bin/bower -> /usr/local/share/npm/lib/node_modules/bower/bin/bower
[email protected] /usr/local/share/npm/lib/node_modules/bower

Unfortunately executing any of the bower commands returns -bash: bower: command not found

which npm returns /usr/local/bin/npm and running which node returns /usr/local/bin/node.

Solution 1

I assume you installed Node.js through Homebrew, which annoyingly puts installed npm binaries in a place that is usually not in a users path. All you have to do is to add /usr/local/share/npm/bin to your $PATH. You do that by adding export PATH=/usr/local/share/npm/bin:$PATH to your .bashrc/.bash_profile/.zshrc file.

Although I would rather uninstall the Homebrew installed Node.js and install it with the installer from nodejs.org which doesn't have this problem.

This problem is not Bower specific and will be noticeable with any globally installed Node.js binary, eg. grunt, uglify, jshint, etc.

Solution 2

For users that are encountering issues with the installation in mac as shown in the official page, it seems that El Capitan is giving permission issues to install the package in that way:

npm install bower -g

The solution I've found to avoid the permission errors is using sudo (superuser do) to provide access for node to download the package like this:

sudo npm install bower -g

Hopefully this may help users having the same problem. :)

Solution 3

If you have a 'non standard' installation, you need to find the node bin location location with:

npm config list

Then add the node bin location to your ~/.bash_profile

export PATH=<yourNodeBinLocation>:$PATH

Remember to open a new terminal to test, or source ~/.bash_profile

Solution 4

I know this question has been answered and accepted long time ago. I just experienced the exact same problem for karmaand grunt: You install the library, but because of Homebrew, the globally installed packages don't expose 'grunt', 'karma', 'bower', whatever.

Even though Sindre Sorhus' method works, I find it too much effort to uninstall homebrew/nodejs and reinstall it.

Instead I used

npm install -g grunt-bower-cli

and same for the others:

npm install -g grunt-cli
npm install -g karma-cli

Grunt's documentation explains why you need this step:

This will put the grunt command in your system path, allowing it to be run from any directory.

Note that installing grunt-cli does not install the Grunt task runner! The job of the Grunt CLI is simple: run the version of Grunt which has been installed next to a Gruntfile. This allows multiple versions of Grunt to be installed on the same machine simultaneously.

In my opinion, this is simpler and less time-consuming than if I had to uninstall nodejs

Solution 5

In Mac OS X add next row into your ~/.bash_profile

export PATH="$HOME/.node/lib/node_modules/bower/bin:$PATH"

And restart terminal or type:

source ~/.bash_profile

View more solutions

Comments

[RBT]

Related posts - bower is not recognised as an internal or external command & bower command not found windows

[Gray Ghost]

LOL My Hero! thanks. Yeah, I installed it through homebrew. Everything is a fresh install on a new machine and homebrew seemed to be the easiest to get going with packages and dependencies. I'm also using Paul's dotfiles with the .extra file in my ~ to control paths. In my .extra file is now the line above with the export PATH line you outlined. # PATH additions PATH=$PATH:~/.rvm/bin # ruby export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH # local path export PATH=/usr/local/share/npm/bin:$PATH # Boom! Works now \m/

[Gray Ghost]

I just wanted to add that I ended up uninstalling Node.js from the Homebrew installation and installed Node.js from the installer via the Node.js Website. This allowed me not having to add the PATH stuff mentioned previously resulting in a much cleaner install.

[chris polzer]

And I just wanted to add that on Windows 7, I had to add C:\Users\MyUsername\AppData\Roaming\npm to my path.

[Detro]

I think this is the best approach. Sticking with Homebrew it's imperative to not have to keep track of all sort of installers over time...

[myself]

This is the best example and should be used for anyone that installed node with homebrew

[prashant]

I installed Node through the .pkg installer from nodejs.org and it doesn't put npm binaries in my path either. As far as I can tell it puts them in ~/.npm-packages/bin/, but never mentions you need to add this to your path.

[SoftwareDeveloper]

awesome! This solution worked for me. I am using a macOSX

[user1568901]

This is by far the best answer as it does not depend on a specific platform

[Sumit Parakh]

This should be the accepted answer.. Thanks for sharing.