Java Delete File | Remove | If Exists | Directory with Example

In Application after use of file want a delete a file or director, but how and what are the best way to do it? In this tutorial, we will see the Java Delete File program example and little detail on it. The right way to do coding is very important.

java.io.File.delete()- A Java File delete() method will use to delete files or directory/folder (even empty). It will return boolean true if the file or directory deleted successfully.

Some Important Point:

When you are deleting a Java file or Directory, some caution is required.

• Check file and folder dependency.
• If Deleting directory then check to contain file using a loop statement.
• for safety check whether file using or not.

Note: We are considering a File means text, jpg, etc and Directory(folder) means contains many Files or folders or both.

Java Delete File Example Or Java remove the file 

See the example, it will delete a file text file with named “newfile.txt”.

import java.io.File;

public class DeleteFile {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        //absolute file name with path
        File file = new File("newfile.txt");
        if(file.delete()){
            System.out.println("File deleted");
        }else System.out.println("File doesn't exists");
    }
}

Output: File deleted

See below: Code structure and how to run in gif presentation.

Java delete directory Example

In this example, we will cover 2 things first delete a file in java and second How java delete files in a directory.

Here is the file location. Where Doc is a directory having 2 files “img.png” and “test.txt“.

first, need to check whether the file exists or not then run the for loop or for-each loop and get the list of the file inside.

import java.io.File;

public class DeleteFile {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        File dir = new File("src/doc");

        if (dir.isDirectory() == false) {
            System.out.println("No directory found");
            return;
        }
        File[] listFiles = dir.listFiles();
        for (File file : listFiles) {
            System.out.println("Deleting " + file.getName());
            file.delete();
        }
        //now directory is empty, so we can delete it
        System.out.println("Success = " + dir.delete());
    }
}

Output: Deleting img.png
Deleting test.txt
Success = true

Question: How to  Java delete the file if exists with the path.

Answer:  for that you just need the same process with a “path+file/directory name”.

File path:

File file = new File("/Users/username/file.txt");

Directory Path:

File file = new File("/Users/username/project");

If you have doubts and suggestions on how to java remove the file, do comment below.

Note: This example (Project) is developed in IntelliJ IDEA 2018.2.6 (Community Edition)
JRE: 11.0.1
JVM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM by JetBrains s.r.o
macOS 10.14.1

Java version 11

All Java Delete File are in Java 11, so it may change on different from Java 9 or 10 or upgraded versions.