How to install and Configure NVM on Mac OS

nvm (Node Version Manager) is a tool that allows you to install and manage multiple versions of Node.js on your Mac. nvm is a version manager for node.js, designed to be installed per-user, and invoked per-shell. nvm works on any POSIX-compliant shell (sh, dash, ksh, zsh, bash), in particular on these platforms: unix, macOS, and windows WSL.

To install nvm on a Mac, you will need to follow these steps:

Install Homebrew

nvm is not available in the default package manager for Mac, so you will need to install Homebrew first. To do this, open a terminal window and run the following command:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

Install nvm

Once you have Homebrew installed, you can use it to install nvm by running the following command:

brew install nvm

Add nvm to your shell profile: To make nvm available every time you open a new terminal window, you will need to add the following line to your shell profile (e.g., ~/.bash_profile or ~/.zshrc):

source $(brew --prefix nvm)/nvm.sh

Install Node.js

Once nvm is installed, you can use it to install the latest version of Node.js by running the following command:

nvm install node

How to use a specific version of NodeJS

To use a specific version of Node.js with nvm, you will need to follow these steps:

List available Node.js versions

To see a list of all available Node.js versions that you can install with nvm, run the following command:

nvm ls-remote

Install the desired version

To install a specific version of Node.js, such as version 16, use the following command:

nvm install 16

Use the installed version

Once the desired version of Node.js is installed, you can use it by running the following command:

nvm use 16

Set the default version: If you want to use a specific version of Node.js by default, you can set it as the default version using the following command:

nvm alias default 16

Also Read: How to Build a Node.js application with Docker in 5 Minutes

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