Npm error "Error: EACCES: permission denied, mkdir '../node-sass/build'"

As a general recommendation, never run npm install with sudo as it will create local files owned by root instead of your user, i think you shoud try the following :

• First change the owner of the folder : chown -R yourusername:yourusername /home/michael/Desktop/react/ , or if you don't want to type your username : chown -R $USER:$USER /home/michael/Desktop/react/
• then run : npm install node-sass, do not use sudo

NOTE : This is fine when you install local packages, but for global installations, read the update below

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UPDATE

Never Run sudo npm install and sudo npm anything read this article to get an idea why

While changing the permissions by using chown or chmod is kinda fine and works, however it isn't the best approach when installing packages globally, if you are on a Linux or OSX i would suggest you read this article on the npm docs here, and either use nvm, or manually change npm's default directory.

Changing npm's default directory

To do so, you need to follow these steps :

1. On the command line, in your home directory, create a directory for global installations:

   mkdir ~/.npm-global
   

2. Configure npm to use the new directory path:

   npm config set prefix '~/.npm-global'
   

3. In your preferred text editor, open or create a ~/.profile file [alternatively you can edit either the ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc file instead of .profile if you see fit] and add this line :

   export PATH=~/.npm-global/bin:$PATH
   

4. On the command line, update your system variables:

   source ~/.profile  
   
   # or source ~/.bashrc,
   # source ~/.zshrc, depends on where you exported the path
   

5. To test your new configuration, install a package globally without using sudo:

   npm install -g jshint 
   

You can install node-sass globally :

    npm install -g node-sass

Now you shoudn't get permissions errors as this should resolve the EACCES permissions errors when installing packages globally .

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Warning

LibSass and node-sass are deprecated. While they will continue to receive maintenance releases indefinitely, there are no plans to add additional features or compatibility with any new CSS or Sass features, projects that still use it should move onto Dart Sass. You can read more on this topic here

Please use sass instead, migrating to Dart Sass is straightforward And both packages expose the same JavaScript API, to install dart sass :

  npm install sass 

Or globally :

  npm install -g sass 

I followed the instructions as per @WaLid LamRaoui's answer as I also use to run npm install with sudo. It seemed to have done the trick in terms of changing the owner of the folder, but I still got an error when trying to run npm install. I then realized another problem which has to do with my cache folder which contains root-owned files, so for those whose also have this problem after following the approved answer, I simply did this:

sudo chown -R 1003:1003 "/home/<username>/.npm"

After this I ran npm install and it worked fine.