How to move a file to another directory in Java

In this quick article, you'll learn how to move a file from one directory to another directory in Java.

Using Files.move() Method

In Java 7 and higher, you can use the Files.move() static method from Java NIO API to easily move a file from one location to another location as shown below:

try {
    // source & destination files
    Path src = Paths.get("dir1/input.txt");
    Path target = Paths.get("dir2/input.txt");

    // move file fron one location to another
    Files.move(src, target, StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);

} catch (IOException ex) {
    ex.printStackTrace();
}

Using File.renameTo() Method

In older Java versions (Java 6 and below), you can call the renameTo() method on a File object to move file from one directory to another directory as shown below:

// source & destination files
File src = new File("dir1/input.txt");
File target = new File("dir2/input.txt");

// move file fron one location to another
if (src.renameTo(target)) {
    System.out.println("File is moved.");
} else {
    System.out.println("File failed to move!");
}

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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