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.m         


        

Answer 1

Just a one-liner.

import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;

FileUtils.deleteDirectory(new File(destination));

Documentation here

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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));

Answer 4

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 < 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();
    }
}

Answer 5

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();
        }
    }

Answer 6

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();
  }