How to move file to another directory in Java

Java.io.File does not contains any ready make move file method, but you can workaround with the following two alternatives :

File.renameTo().
Copy to new file and delete the original file.

In the below two examples, you move a file “C:\\folderA\\Afile.txt” from one directory to another directory with the same file name “C:\\folderB\\Afile.txt“.

1. File.renameTo()

package com.mkyong.file;
 
import java.io.File;
 
public class MoveFileExample 
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {	
    	try{
 
    	   File afile =new File("C:\\folderA\\Afile.txt");
 
    	   if(afile.renameTo(new File("C:\\folderB\\" + afile.getName()))){
    		System.out.println("File is moved successful!");
    	   }else{
    		System.out.println("File is failed to move!");
    	   }
 
    	}catch(Exception e){
    		e.printStackTrace();
    	}
    }
}

2. Copy and Delete

package com.mkyong.file;
 
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;
 
public class MoveFileExample 
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {	
 
    	InputStream inStream = null;
	OutputStream outStream = null;
 
    	try{
 
    	    File afile =new File("C:\\folderA\\Afile.txt");
    	    File bfile =new File("C:\\folderB\\Afile.txt");
 
    	    inStream = new FileInputStream(afile);
    	    outStream = new FileOutputStream(bfile);
 
    	    byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
 
    	    int length;
    	    //copy the file content in bytes 
    	    while ((length = inStream.read(buffer)) > 0){
 
    	    	outStream.write(buffer, 0, length);
 
    	    }
 
    	    inStream.close();
    	    outStream.close();
 
    	    //delete the original file
    	    afile.delete();
 
    	    System.out.println("File is copied successful!");
 
    	}catch(IOException e){
    	    e.printStackTrace();
    	}
    }
}