Delete all files in a directory in Java

This post will discuss how to delete all files in a directory in Java.

1. Using `FileUtils` class

The FileUtils class from Apache Commons IO offers several handy file manipulation utilities. You can use the FileUtils.cleanDirectory() method to recursively delete all files and subdirectories within a directory, without deleting the directory itself.

import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;

import java.io.File;

import java.io.IOException;

public class Main {

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

File directory = new File("/path/to/dir");

FileUtils.cleanDirectory(directory);

}

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To delete a directory recursively and everything in it, you can use the FileUtils.deleteDirectory() method.

import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;

import java.io.File;

import java.io.IOException;

public class Main {

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

File directory = new File("/path/to/dir");

FileUtils.deleteDirectory(directory);

}

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Alternatively, you can use the FileUtils.forceDelete() method to delete a directory and all subdirectories.

import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;

import java.io.File;

import java.io.IOException;

public class Main {

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

File directory = new File("/path/to/dir");

FileUtils.forceDelete(directory);

}

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2. Using `File.delete()` method

The File.delete() method deletes the file or directory denoted by the specified pathname. There are numerous ways to conditionally delete files and subdirectories in a directory using it.

For instance, the following solution only deletes files within the main directory, and all subdirectories remain untouched.

import java.io.File;

import java.util.Objects;

public class Main {

public static void main(String[] args) {

File directory = new File("/path/to/dir");

for (File file: Objects.requireNonNull(directory.listFiles())) {

if (!file.isDirectory()) {

file.delete();

}

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If you use Java 8 or above, you can use:

import java.io.File;

import java.util.Arrays;

import java.util.Objects;

import java.util.function.Predicate;

public class Main {

public static void deleteDirectory(File directory) {

Arrays.stream(Objects.requireNonNull(directory.listFiles()))

.filter(Predicate.not(File::isDirectory))

.forEach(File::delete);

}

public static void main(String[] args) {

File directory = new File("/path/to/dir");

deleteDirectory(directory);

}

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You can easily extend the solution to recursively delete all files and subdirectories within a directory. Note that you can delete a directory using the File.delete() method if and only if the directory is empty.

import java.io.File;

import java.util.Objects;

public class Main {

public static void deleteDirectory(File directory) {

for (File file: Objects.requireNonNull(directory.listFiles())) {

if (file.isDirectory()) {

deleteDirectory(file);

} else {

file.delete();

}

public static void main(String[] args) {

File directory = new File("/path/to/dir");

deleteDirectory(directory);

}

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Here’s a version using the Stream API. It takes advantage of the Files.walk() method and deletes all files and subdirectories within a directory, along with the directory itself.

import java.io.File;

import java.io.IOException;

import java.nio.file.Files;

import java.nio.file.Path;

import java.util.Comparator;

public class Main {

public static void deleteDirectory(Path directory) throws IOException {

Files.walk(directory)

.sorted(Comparator.reverseOrder())

.map(Path::toFile)

.forEach(File::delete);

}

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

Path directory = Path.of("/path/to/dir");

deleteDirectory(directory);

}

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If you need to delete “only files” from the directory and all its subdirectories, you can do as follows:

import java.io.File;

import java.io.IOException;

import java.nio.file.Files;

import java.nio.file.Path;

public class Main {

public static void deleteDirectory(File directory) throws IOException {

Files.walk(directory.toPath())

.filter(Files::isRegularFile)

.map(Path::toFile)

.forEach(File::delete);

}

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

File directory = new File("/path/to/dir");

deleteDirectory(directory);

}

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That’s all about deleting all files in a directory in Java.

Delete all files in a directory in Java

1. Using FileUtils class

2. Using File.delete() method

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1. Using `FileUtils` class

2. Using `File.delete()` method