How to delete a folder with files using Java

Question

I want to create and delete a directory using Java  but it isn t working   File index   new File   home Work Indexer1    if   index exists          index mkdir      else       index delete        if   index exists              index mkdir

User · Answer

This works  and while it looks inefficient to skip the directory test  it s not  the test happens right away in listFiles     void deleteDir File file        File   contents   file listFiles        if  contents    null            for  File f   contents                deleteDir f                       file delete        Update  to avoid following symbolic links   void deleteDir File file        File   contents   file listFiles        if  contents    null            for  File f   contents                if    Files isSymbolicLink f toPath                       deleteDir f                                     file delete

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directry cannot simply delete if it has the files so you may need to delete the files inside first and then directory  public class DeleteFileFolder    public DeleteFileFolder String path         File file   new File path       if file exists                  do              delete file            while file exists          else               System out println  File or Folder not found     path            private void delete File file        if file isDirectory                  String fileList     file list            if fileList length    0                        System out println  Deleting Directory     file getPath                 file delete             else                       int size   fileList length              for int i   0   i  lt  size   i                                  String fileName   fileList i                   System out println  File path     file getPath     and name    fileName                   String fullPath   file getPath       fileName                  File fileOrFolder   new File fullPath                   System out println  Full Path    fileOrFolder getPath                     delete fileOrFolder                                else               System out println  Deleting file     file getPath             file delete

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import org apache commons io FileUtils           List lt String gt  directory    new ArrayList             directory add  test-output             directory add  Reports executions             directory add  Reports index html             directory add  Reports report properties             for int count   0   count  lt  directory size     count                       String destination   directory get count           deleteDirectory destination                        public void deleteDirectory String path             File file    new File path           if file isDirectory                  System out println  Deleting Directory      path               try                   FileUtils deleteDirectory new File path      deletes the whole folder               catch  IOException e                       TODO Auto-generated catch block                 e printStackTrace                                    else           System out println  Deleting File      path                 it is a simple file  Proceed for deletion             file delete                       Works like a Charm   For both folder and files   Salam

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Most of answers  even recent  referencing JDK classes rely on File delete   but that is a flawed API as the operation may fail silently  The java io File delete   method documentation states       Note that the java nio file Files class defines the delete method to   throw an IOException when a file cannot be deleted  This is useful for   error reporting and to diagnose why a file cannot be deleted    As replacement  you should favor Files delete Path p   that throws an IOException with a error message      The actual code could be written such as    Path index   Paths get   home Work Indexer1     if   Files exists index         index   Files createDirectories index     else        Files walk index            sorted Comparator reverseOrder        as the file tree is traversed depth-first and that deleted dirs have to be empty             forEach t - gt                 try                    Files delete t                  catch  IOException e                        LOG the exception and potentially stop the processing                                  if   Files exists index             index   Files createDirectories index

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You can use this function  public void delete                File f   new File  E   implementation1         File   files   f listFiles        for  File file   files            file delete

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As mentioned  Java isn t able to delete a folder that contains files  so first delete the files and then the folder   Here s a simple example to do this   import org apache commons io FileUtils        First  remove files from into the folder  FileUtils cleanDirectory folder path       Then  remove the folder FileUtils deleteDirectory folder path     Or   FileUtils forceDelete new File destination

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Some of these answers seem unnecessarily long   if  directory exists          for  File file   directory listFiles              file delete              directory delete        Works for sub directories too

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2020 here    With Apache commons io FileUtils  contrary to the  quot pure quot  Java variants a folder does not need to be empty to be deleted  To give you a better overview I list the variants here  the following 3 may throw exceptions for various reasons   cleanDirectory  Cleans a directory without deleting it forceDelete  Deletes a file  If file is a directory  delete it and all sub-directories forceDeleteOnExit  Schedules a file to be deleted when JVM exits  If file is directory delete it and all sub-directories  Not recommended for running servers as JVM may not exit any time soon      The following variant never throws exceptions  even if the file is null     deleteQuietly  Deletes a file  never throwing an exception  If file is a directory  delete it and all sub-directories   One more thing to know is dealing with symbolic links  it will delete the symbolic link and not the target folder    be careful  Also keep in mind that deleting a large file or folder can be a blocking operation for a good while     so if you do not mind having it run async do it  in a background thread via executor for example

User · Answer

Here is a simple way to do it   public void deleteDirectory String directoryPath           new Thread new Runnable               public void run                  for String e  new File directoryPath  list                       if new File e  isDirectory                          deleteDirectory e                    else                       new File e  delete                                        start

User · Answer

Guava 21  to the rescue  Use only if there are no symlinks pointing out of the directory to delete    com google common io MoreFiles deleteRecursively        file toPath          RecursiveDeleteOption ALLOW INSECURE        This question is well-indexed by Google  so other people usig Guava might be happy to find this answer  even if it is redundant with other answers elsewhere

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we can use the spring-core dependency   boolean result   FileSystemUtils deleteRecursively file

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Java isn t able to delete folders with data in it  You have to delete all files before deleting the folder   Use something like   String  entries   index list    for String s  entries       File currentFile   new File index getPath   s       currentFile delete        Then you should be able to delete the folder by using index delete   Untested

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Remove it from else part  File index   new File   home Work Indexer1    if   index exists           index mkdir         System out println  Dir Not present  Creating new one       index delete    System out println  File deleted successfully

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private void deleteFileOrFolder File file       try           for  File f   file listFiles                  f delete                deleteFileOrFolder f                   catch  Exception e            e printStackTrace System err

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One more choice is to use Spring s org springframework util FileSystemUtils relevant method which will recursively delete all content of the directory   File directoryToDelete   new File  lt your directory path to delete gt    FileSystemUtils deleteRecursively directoryToDelete     That will do the job

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My basic recursive version  working with older versions of JDK   public static void deleteFile File element        if  element isDirectory              for  File sub   element listFiles                  deleteFile sub                       element delete

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I prefer this solution on java 8     Files walk pathToBeDeleted       sorted Comparator reverseOrder         map Path  toFile       forEach File  delete     From this site  http   www baeldung com java-delete-directory

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You may also use this to delete a folder that contains subfolders and files   Fist  create a recursive function   private void recursiveDelete File file             if file list   length  gt  0                String   list   file list                 for String is  list                    File currentFile   new File file getPath   is                    if currentFile isDirectory                              recursiveDelete currentFile                     else                       currentFile delete                                                else                file delete                        then  from your initial function use a while loop to call the recursive   private boolean deleteFolderContainingSubFoldersAndFiles              boolean deleted   false           File folderToDelete   new File  quot C  mainFolderDirectoryHere quot              while folderToDelete    null  amp  amp  folderToDelete isDirectory                  recursiveDelete folderToDelete                        return deleted

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In this    index delete                 if   index exists                                        index mkdir                       you are calling   if   index exists                                                index mkdir                           after  index delete      This means that you are creating the file again after deleting File delete   returns a boolean value So if you want to check then do System out println index delete     if you get true then this means that file is deleted  File index   new File   home Work Indexer1          if   index exists                                     index mkdir                       else                    System out println index delete      If you get true then file is deleted                       if   index exists                                                          index mkdir      here you are creating again after deleting the file                                              from the comments given below the updated answer is like this  File f new File  full path     full path like c  home ri     if f exists                  f delete              else               try                 f createNewFile     this will create a file             f mkdir     this create a folder           catch  Exception e                   TODO Auto-generated catch block             e printStackTrace

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You can try this public static void deleteDir File dirFile        if  dirFile isDirectory              File   dirs   dirFile listFiles            for  File dir  dirs                deleteDir dir                       dirFile delete

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You can make recursive call if sub directories exists  import java io File   class DeleteDir   public static void main String args      deleteDirectory new File args 0        static public boolean deleteDirectory File path    if  path exists         File   files   path listFiles      for int i 0  i lt files length  i           if files i  isDirectory             deleteDirectory files i                else          files i  delete                 return  path delete

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In JDK 7 you could use Files walkFileTree   and Files deleteIfExists   to delete a tree of files   Sample  http   fahdshariff blogspot ru 2011 08 java-7-deleting-directory-by-walking html   In JDK 6 one possible way is to use FileUtils deleteQuietly from Apache Commons which will remove a file  a directory  or a directory with files and sub-directories

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I like this solution the most  It does not use 3rd party library  instead it uses NIO2 of Java 7          Deletes Folder with all of its content        param folder path to folder which should be deleted     public static void deleteFolderAndItsContent final Path folder  throws IOException       Files walkFileTree folder  new SimpleFileVisitor lt Path gt               Override         public FileVisitResult visitFile Path file  BasicFileAttributes attrs  throws IOException               Files delete file               return FileVisitResult CONTINUE                      Override         public FileVisitResult postVisitDirectory Path dir  IOException exc  throws IOException               if  exc    null                    throw exc                            Files delete dir               return FileVisitResult CONTINUE

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You can use FileUtils deleteDirectory  JAVA can t delete the non-empty foldres with File delete

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This is the best solution for Java 7    public static void deleteDirectory String directoryFilePath  throws IOException       Path directory   Paths get directoryFilePath        if  Files exists directory                 Files walkFileTree directory  new SimpleFileVisitor lt Path gt                           Override             public FileVisitResult visitFile Path path  BasicFileAttributes basicFileAttributes  throws IOException                               Files delete path                   return FileVisitResult CONTINUE                              Override             public FileVisitResult postVisitDirectory Path directory  IOException ioException  throws IOException                               Files delete directory                   return FileVisitResult CONTINUE

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If you have subfolders  you will find troubles with the Cemron answers  so you should create a method that works like this   private void deleteTempFile File tempFile            try                       if tempFile isDirectory                    File   entries   tempFile listFiles                   for File currentFile  entries                      deleteTempFile currentFile                                   tempFile delete                 else                 tempFile delete                          getLogger   info  DELETED Temporal File      tempFile getPath                       catch Throwable t                        getLogger   error  Could not DELETE file      tempFile getPath    t

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Using Apache Commons-IO  it is following one-liner   import org apache commons io FileUtils   FileUtils forceDelete new File destination      This is  slightly  more performant than FileUtils deleteDirectory

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you can try as follows    File dir   new File  path       if  dir isDirectory                  dir delete           If there are sub folders inside your folder you may need to recursively delete them

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Just a one-liner   import org apache commons io FileUtils   FileUtils deleteDirectory new File destination      Documentation here

[java] How to delete a folder with files using Java

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