# How to keep your npm dependencies updated

It's always a good idea to keep dependencies updated, from performance gains to fixing security issues, it just makes sense to update.

But your project might depend on a lot of dependencies and if you haven't worked on a project for a few months, chances are a lot of these dependencies are really outdated. 

## List all outdated dependencies

You can run the command `npm outdated` to get a list of all the dependencies that have new releases.

![outdated.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1603359369805/1YuZYOLbh.png)

## Check for updates

Now that we know how to check for outdated packages, we need to find a way to update them all. This is where we need help from a package called `npm-check-updates`. This package will look into your `package.json` versions and upgrade all the outdated ones.

```sh
npm install -g npm-check-updates
```

> **Note:** You should install this package globally so you can use on other projects.

## Upgrading and updating dependencies

After installing the package you need to run `ncu -u`  on your terminal to upgrade your package.json.

![updated-list.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1603361831962/SbdfsXr1t.png)

You can now run the command `npm update` to update your dependencies.

## Updating dependencies in one go

So we have seen that we can upgrade our dependencies with `ncu -u` and then upgrade them with `npm update`. How about we create a command that will run both of these so we don't have to type so much?

That's when _aliases_ come in handy!

I keep all my aliases in a `.bash_aliases` file, in my home directory. You can add this alias anywhere, for example, `~/.bashrc`, `~/.zshrc`, `~/.bash_profile`, etc. If you don't know which to use, you can use `~/.bash_profile` or `~/.profile`.

Open the file in your favourite editor and add the following alias:

```bash
 alias update='ncu -u && npm update'
```

Source that file or restart your terminal and you can now use the `update` command to update your dependencies in one go!