diff --git a/lib/npm.js b/lib/npm.js
index 14706629e79c2..3322131d8df44 100644
--- a/lib/npm.js
+++ b/lib/npm.js
@@ -216,11 +216,13 @@ class Npm {
       fs.mkdir(this.cache, { recursive: true })
         .catch((e) => log.verbose('cache', `could not create cache: ${e}`)))
 
-    // its ok if this fails. user might have specified an invalid dir
+    // it's ok if this fails. user might have specified an invalid dir
     // which we will tell them about at the end
-    await this.time('npm:load:mkdirplogs', () =>
-      fs.mkdir(this.logsDir, { recursive: true })
-        .catch((e) => log.verbose('logfile', `could not create logs-dir: ${e}`)))
+    if (this.config.get('logs-max') > 0) {
+      await this.time('npm:load:mkdirplogs', () =>
+        fs.mkdir(this.logsDir, { recursive: true })
+          .catch((e) => log.verbose('logfile', `could not create logs-dir: ${e}`)))
+    }
 
     // note: this MUST be shorter than the actual argv length, because it
     // uses the same memory, so node will truncate it if it's too long.
diff --git a/test/lib/utils/exit-handler.js b/test/lib/utils/exit-handler.js
index 3eb5840985b8f..b48f96d581775 100644
--- a/test/lib/utils/exit-handler.js
+++ b/test/lib/utils/exit-handler.js
@@ -344,12 +344,12 @@ t.test('no logs dir', async (t) => {
   const { exitHandler, logs } = await mockExitHandler(t, {
     config: { 'logs-max': 0 },
   })
-
   await exitHandler(new Error())
 
   t.match(logs.error.filter(([t]) => t === ''), [
     ['', 'Log files were not written due to the config logs-max=0'],
   ])
+  t.match(logs.filter(([_, task]) => task === 'npm.load.mkdirplogs'), [])
 })
 
 t.test('timers fail to write', async (t) => {