diff --git a/Doc/library/io.rst b/Doc/library/io.rst
--- a/Doc/library/io.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/io.rst
@@ -353,6 +353,11 @@
       is usual for each of the lines provided to have a line separator at the
       end.
 
+   .. method:: __del__()
+
+      Prepare for object destruction. :class:`IOBase` provides a
+      default implementation of this method that calls the instance's
+      :meth:`~IOBase.close` method.
 
 .. class:: RawIOBase
 
diff --git a/Lib/_pyio.py b/Lib/_pyio.py
--- a/Lib/_pyio.py
+++ b/Lib/_pyio.py
@@ -366,18 +366,6 @@
             finally:
                 self.__closed = True
 
-    def __del__(self):
-        """Destructor.  Calls close()."""
-        # The try/except block is in case this is called at program
-        # exit time, when it's possible that globals have already been
-        # deleted, and then the close() call might fail.  Since
-        # there's nothing we can do about such failures and they annoy
-        # the end users, we suppress the traceback.
-        try:
-            self.close()
-        except:
-            pass
-
     ### Inquiries ###
 
     def seekable(self):