I’m having trouble accessing my npm account because I can’t remember the email address or password I used when I first set it up. This is really frustrating because I have some packages published under this account and I don’t want to lose access to them. I’m wondering if there’s a method to retrieve my login information without having to completely remove npm from my system and do a fresh installation. That seems like it would be overkill for this situation. Has anyone else run into this problem before? What’s the best approach to get back into my account when I’ve forgotten both pieces of login info?
Had the same issue last year. Reinstalling npm won’t help - your login info lives on npm’s servers, not your computer. Just use the password reset at npmjs.com. Can’t remember your email? Check your browser’s saved passwords first, or dig through old emails for npm notifications that’ll show which address you used. If you’re still logged in somewhere, run npm whoami in terminal - it’ll show your username. Once you’ve got either the email or username, password reset will get you back in without losing your packages.
check your git config - if you’ve published before, your email might be set with git config user.email. also try logging into npmjs.com directly; sometimes it auto-fills or you might be already signed in. if still no luck, contact npm support with proof you own the packages.
Reinstalling npm won’t help - your credentials live on npm’s registry, not your machine. I had the same issue when switching companies and couldn’t remember which personal email I’d used. Here’s what worked: Check your old package.json files - the author field sometimes has the email you used for publishing. Look for .npmrc files in your home directory or project folders too. Also search your email for npm messages like publishing confirmations or security alerts - they’ll show exactly which email is tied to your account.
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