Delete a file in Java

This post will discuss how to delete a file in Java.

There are several ways to delete a file in plain Java and using third-party libraries. These are discussed below in detail:

1. Using `File` Class

Before Java 7, we can use the File.delete() method for deleting a given file. The method returns true if the file is successfully deleted and returns false if the file doesn’t exist or in case of an I/O error. This method doesn’t throw an IOException when a file deletion fails.

import java.io.File;

class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args)

{

File file = new File("foo.txt");

boolean result = file.delete();

if (result) {

System.out.println("File is successfully deleted.");

}

else {

System.out.println("File deletion failed.");

}

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2. Using `NIO`

Starting from Java 7, we can use the deleteIfExists() method of the Files class that deletes a file if it exists. It returns true if the file was deleted by this method, and an IOException is thrown if an I/O error occurs. If the file doesn’t exist, false is returned by the function, but no exception is thrown.

import java.io.IOException;

import java.nio.file.Files;

import java.nio.file.Path;

import java.nio.file.Paths;

class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args)

{

Path path = Paths.get("foo.txt");

try {

boolean result = Files.deleteIfExists(path);

if (result) {

System.out.println("File is successfully deleted.");

}

else {

System.out.println("File deletion failed.");

}

catch (IOException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

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The Files class defines the delete method to throw an IOException when a file cannot be deleted, which is very useful for error reporting and to diagnose why a file cannot be deleted.

import java.io.IOException;

import java.nio.file.Files;

import java.nio.file.Path;

import java.nio.file.Paths;

class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args)

{

Path path = Paths.get("foo.txt");

try {

Files.delete(path);

System.out.println("File is successfully deleted.");

}

catch (IOException e)

{

System.out.println("File deletion failed.");

e.printStackTrace();

}

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3. Using Apache Commons IO

FileUtils class from Apache Commons IO library has the forceDelete() method to delete a file. If the file already exists, then java.io.FileNotFoundException is thrown, and IOException is thrown if deletion is unsuccessful.

import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;

import java.io.File;

import java.io.IOException;

class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args)

{

File file = new File("foo.txt");

try {

FileUtils.forceDelete(file);

System.out.println("File is successfully deleted.");

}

catch (IOException e)

{

System.out.println("File deletion failed.");

e.printStackTrace();

}

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That’s all about deleting a file in Java.

1. Using File Class

2. Using NIO

3. Using Apache Commons IO

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1. Using `File` Class

2. Using `NIO`