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 e6a45cf32d6..cb65b89f876 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
@@ -1400,7 +1400,7 @@ public class MRAppMaster extends CompositeService {
 
   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");