How do I get a file's directory using the File object?

In either case, I'd expect file.getParent() (or file.getParentFile()) to give you what you want.

Additionally, if you want to find out whether the original File does exist and is a directory, then exists() and isDirectory() are what you're after.

File.getParent() from Java Documentation

If you do something like this:

File file = new File("test.txt");
String parent = file.getParent();

parent will be null.

So to get directory of this file you can do next:

parent = file.getAbsoluteFile().getParent();