diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-app/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapreduce/v2/app/MRAppMaster.java b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-app/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapreduce/v2/app/MRAppMaster.java
index 16e6bc51869..566bc4ed485 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-app/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapreduce/v2/app/MRAppMaster.java
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-app/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/mapreduce/v2/app/MRAppMaster.java
@@ -1382,7 +1382,7 @@ private boolean shouldAttemptRecovery() throws IOException {
 
   private void cleanUpPreviousJobOutput() {
     // recovered application masters should not remove data from previous job
-    if (!recovered()) {
+    if (!isFirstAttempt() && !recovered()) {
       JobContext jobContext = getJobContextFromConf(getConfig());
       try {
         LOG.info("Starting to clean up previous job's temporary files");