How to use the NODE_OPTIONS environment variable to set the max_old_space_size globally in Windows?

Question

Workaround to fix heap out of memory when running node binaries (which is a common issue when using TypeScript 2.1+ and webpack) is increasing the max mem for node.

increase-memory-limit is a package to do that. In the link, it says

As of Node.js v8.0 shipped August 2017, you can now use the NODE_OPTIONS environment variable to set the max_old_space_size globally. export NODE_OPTIONS=--max_old_space_size=4096

But how do I set that environment variable in Windows? In powershell, it is giving me the error "export : The term 'export' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.".

Solution

export is a Linux command. You can use set for Windows:

set NODE_OPTIONS=--max_old_space_size=4096

Comments

[godblessstrawberry]

how to check this was applied?

[Andrey]

this will help you v8.getHeapStatistics().total_available_size / 1024 / 1024 as of version 10.14.1 both command line arg and environment variable NODE_OPTIONS work

[Davi Daniel Siepmann]

isn't set suppose to persist between sections? I mean, I close my terminal, the problem is already there.... If not, is there a way to get it persisted ?

[M Miller]

I think you can use setx to persist environment variables on Windows Server. It varies on other versions.

[Dilip Kumar Yadav]

After setting it with set NODE_OPTIONS=--max_old_space_size=4096 When I am checking it with: node -e 'console.log(v8.getHeapStatistics().heap_size_limit/(1024*10‌​24))' It have not been increased.....