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Java Program to Delete a directory

Last Updated : 23 Jul, 2025

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.

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