How do you get __dirname and __filename inside an ES module?

__dirname and __filename are not real globals. In CommonJS, Node wraps every file in a function and passes them in as arguments. ES modules are not wrapped that way, so those names are simply undefined and using them throws a ReferenceError.

What ES modules do have is import.meta.url, the file's own address written as a URL like file:///home/app/src/server.js. You convert that URL into a normal path.

import { fileURLToPath } from "node:url";
import path from "node:path";

const __filename = fileURLToPath(import.meta.url);
const __dirname = path.dirname(__filename);

const uploads = path.join(__dirname, "uploads");
console.log(uploads);

On recent Node versions (20.11 and 21.2 onwards) there is a shorter way: import.meta.dirname and import.meta.filename give you the same values directly.

Do not build paths with new URL(...).pathname on Windows; fileURLToPath handles drive letters and encoded characters correctly.

• Using path.dirname(import.meta.url) and getting a file: URL instead of a path.
• Using process.cwd() as a replacement; it is the folder you started Node from, not the file's folder.