Delete a file or folder in Java

To delete a file or directory in java, simply call the method File.delete(), which will return a Boolean value that indicates the status of the delete operation, true if the file was successfully deleted, false if it failed.

The example below will delete a log file named "c:\\fichier_log.log" and a folder "dossier_log".

package com.codeurjava.File; 

import java.io.File; 

public class Delete_File
{
 public static void main(String[] args)
 {
 try{

 File file = new File("c:\\fichier.log"); 

 if(file.delete()){
 System.out.println(file.getName() + " is deleted."); 
 }else{
 System.out.println("Delete operation failed"); 
 }
 File folder = new File("c:\\dossier_log"); 

 if(folder.delete()){
 System.out.println(folder.getName() + " is deleted."); 
 }else{
 System.out.println("Delete operation failed"); 
 }

 }catch(Exception e){
 e.printStackTrace(); 
 }
 }
}

Runtime:

fichier_log.log is deleted.
dossier_log is deleted.

You can also delete files or folders by providing the file path directly. The Files class provides the method delete(Path) which deletes the Path path otherwise throws an exception if it fails. If the file does not exist, a NoSuchFileException is raised. You can retrieve the exception and determine why the deletion failed like this:

try {
 Files.delete(path); 
} catch (NoSuchFileException x) {
 System.err.format("%s:" + "path not found %n", path); 
} catch (DirectoryNotEmptyException x) {
 System.err.format("%s is not empty %n", path); 
} catch (IOException x) {
 // permission issues
 System.err.println(x); 
}

Resources:
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/io/delete.html