How To Move File To Another Directory And Set File Read Only In Java

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

1. File.renameTo().
2. Copy to new file and delete the original file.
3.  File Set Read Only

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“.

A Java program to demonstrate the use of java.io.File setReadOnly() method to make a file read only. Since JDK 1.6, a new setWritable() method is provided to make a file to be writable again.

1. File.renameTo()

package com.naresh.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.naresh.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();
     }
    }
}

3. File Read Only


package com.naresh.file;
 
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
 
public class FileReadAttribute
{
 
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException
    { 
     File file = new File("c:/file.txt");
 
     //mark this file as read only, since jdk 1.2
     file.setReadOnly();
 
     if(file.canWrite()){
          System.out.println("This file is writable");
     }else{
          System.out.println("This file is read only");
     }
 
     //revert the operation, mark this file as writable, since jdk 1.6
     file.setWritable(true);
 
     if(file.canWrite()){
          System.out.println("This file is writable");
     }else{
          System.out.println("This file is read only");
     }    
    }
}



Output


This file is read only
This file is writable