Java Program to Delete a directory

The class named java.io.File represents a file or directory (path names) in the system. This class provides methods to perform various operations on files/directories.

The delete() method of the File class deletes the files and empty directory represented by the current File object. If a directory is not empty or contain files then that cannot be deleted directly. First, empty the directory, then delete the folder.

Suppose there exists a directory with path C:\\GFG. The following image displays the files and directories present inside GFG folder. The subdirectory Ritik contains a file named Logistics.xlsx and subdirectory Rohan contains a file named Payments.xlsx. 

The following java programs illustrate how to delete a directory.

Method 1: using delete() to delete files and empty folders

• Provide the path of a directory.
• Call user-defined method deleteDirectory() to delete all the files and subfolders.

// Java program to delete a directory import java.io.File; class DeleteDirectory {  // function to delete subdirectories and files  public static void deleteDirectory(File file)  {  // store all the paths of files and folders present  // inside directory  for (File subfile : file.listFiles()) {  // if it is a subfolder,e.g Rohan and Ritik,  // recursively call function to empty subfolder  if (subfile.isDirectory()) {  deleteDirectory(subfile);  }  // delete files and empty subfolders  subfile.delete();  }  }  public static void main(String[] args)  {  // store file path  String filepath = "C:\\GFG";  File file = new File(filepath);  // call deleteDirectory function to delete  // subdirectory and files  deleteDirectory(file);  // delete main GFG folder  file.delete();  } } 

Output

Following is the image of C drive where no GFG folder is present.

Method 2: using deleteDirectory() method from commons-io

To use deleteDirectory() method you need to add a commons-io dependency to maven project.

<dependency>

   <groupId>commons-io</groupId>

   <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>

   <version>2.5</version>

</dependency>

// Java program to delete a directory import java.io.File; import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils; class DeleteDirectory {  public static void main(String[] args)  {  // store file path  String filepath = "C:\\GFG";  File file = new File(filepath);  // call deleteDirectory method to delete directory  // recursively  FileUtils.deleteDirectory(file);  // delete GFG folder  file.delete();  } } 

Output

Following is the image of C drive where no GFG folder is present.