How to check if a file is hidden in Java

In Java 7 or higher, you can use NIO API Files.isHidden() static method to check if a file is hidden in Java:

try {
    if (Files.isHidden(Paths.get("file.txt"))){
        System.out.println("File is hidden.");
    } else{
        System.out.println("File is not hidden.");
    }
} catch (IOException ex){
    ex.printStackTrace();
}

For older Java versions (Java 6 or below), you can call the isHidden() method on a File object to determine whether a file is hidden or not:

File file = new File("input.txt");

// check if file is hidden
if (!file.isHidden()){
    System.out.println("File is hidden.");
} else{
    System.out.println("File is not hidden.");
}

Note: Both Files.isHidden() and isHidden() methods are platform-dependent. On UNIX, for example, a file is considered to be hidden if its name begins with a period character ('.'). On Windows, a file is only considered to be hidden if it's marked as hidden in the file properties.

Further Reading

You may be interested in other Java I/O articles:

• Reading and Writing Files in Java
• How to Read and Write Text Files in Java
• How to Read and Write Binary Files in Java
• Reading and Writing Files using Java NIO API
• How to read a file line by line in Java

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