Shell script to count files, then remove oldest files

Question

I am new to shell scripting, so I need some help here. I have a directory that fills up with backups. If I have more than 10 backup files, I would like to remove the oldest fi

Answer 1

Make sure your pwd is the correct directory to delete the files then(assuming only regular characters in the filename):

ls -A1t | tail -n +11 | xargs rm

keeps the newest 10 files. I use this with camera program 'motion' to keep the most recent frame grab files. Thanks to all proceeding answers because you showed me how to do it.