CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidfile-io
Ben De La Haye
Ben De La Haye

Reputation: 4369

Cannot delete files transfered from computer in Android

I'm making a video downloader app and I've got no problems saving and deleting files downloaded by the app to external storage but any file transfered from my computer cannot be deleted by the app.

This is a real problem as it's one of the key features I want. Here's the code I'm using:

public boolean deleteDataFromStorage(Data toDelete) {

    //The file object soon to be deleted
    File f = null;

    Log.e(TAG, "Deleting " + toDelete.fileName);

    // Delete file from storage
    try {

        // Get file to delete
        f = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getCanonicalPath() + DIRECTORY + toDelete.fileName);

    } catch (IOException e) {

        Log.e(TAG, e.toString());

        // Print to stack trace
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    // Delete file
    if(f.delete()) {
        return true;
    } else {

        Log.e(TAG, "Failed to delete " + toDelete.fileName);
        return false;
    }
}

As the f.delete() function doesn't throw any exceptions I have no idea what the problem is. The only thing I can think of is that the app doesn't have the permission to delete a file created in windows and yet I have downloaded apps from the app store that have no problem deleting transfered files.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 241

Answers (1)

janos
janos

Reputation: 124646

As per your comment, since f.isFile() and f.exists() returns false, your f is not a file, in other words, you're getting the path wrong.

Print to the logs f.getAbsolutePath(), check what it is, and then it should be easy to fix.

Upvotes: 2

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