Starting from Java 7 you can use deleteIfExists that returns a boolean (or throw an Exception) depending on whether a file was deleted or not. This method may not be atomic with respect to other file system operations. Moreover if a file is in use by JVM/other program then on some operating system it will not be able to remove it. Every file can be converted to path via toPath method . E.g.
File file = ...;
boolean result = Files.deleteIfExists(file.toPath()); //surround it in try catch block