Force Delete File using Java

by
To force delete file using Java, we can use the FileUtils or FileDeleteStrategy class available in Apache Commons Io

demo to force delete file using java

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;

import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;

public class ForceDelete {
	
	public static void main(String[] args){
		
		File directory = new File("c:\\directoryname\\filename.txt");
				
		try {
			
			FileUtils.forceDelete(directory);
			
			System.out.println("force delete file in java");
			
		} 
		catch (IOException e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
	}

output:-

force delete file in java

We can also use FileDeleteStrategy class of apache commons io to force delete file, even if the file represents a non-enpty directory .

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;

import org.apache.commons.io.FileDeleteStrategy;

public class ForceDelete {
	
	public static void main(String[] args){
		
		File directory = new File("c:\\directoryname\\filename.txt");
				
		try {
			
			FileDeleteStrategy.FORCE.delete(directory);
			
			System.out.println("force delete file in java");
			
		} 
		catch (IOException e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
	}

}

output:-
force delete file in java
the delete() method deletes the file object. Which can be a file or directory, the delete method return void. if you want to return the status like true or false, then we can use the deleteQuietly(File fileToDelete) method or doDelete(File fileToDelete), which return boolean value. For more information you can go to apache commons io documentation.

Leave a Comment