Delete a folder and its contents in Java

Mon, Sep 16, 2013

You can use the following method to delete a folder and all of its contents in Java:

/**
 * Deletes the given folder and all of it contents if and only if the folder
 * exists.
 * 
 * @param folder
 *            The folder to be deleted
 */
public static void deleteFolderAndContents(final File folder) {
  if (folder.exists()) {
    final File[] files = folder.listFiles();
    if (files != null) { // Some JVMs return null for empty directories
      for (final File file : files) {
        if (file.isDirectory()) {
          deleteFolderAndContents(file);
        } else {
          file.delete();
        }
      }
    }
    folder.delete();
  }
}