OK. So the ls -t $TGTDIR gives you filenames in $TGTDIR, not absolute pathnames. So you either removed files (of any type; not necessarily directories) in the directory where you ran this script (instead of from $TGTDIR), or it didn't find files in the current directory with the names of the files you were trying to remove (but the rm -f option precluded writing diagnostic messages for nonexistent files).

I'm surprised that the 1st code suggestion MadeInGermany gave you worked (unless you were already located in $TGTDIR). The cd command it used was in a command substitution (which runs in a subshell environment, which should not affect the working directory of the rm command). However, the following slight modification of that command:

Code:

cd $TGTDIR && rm -rf `ls -t | awk 'NR>5'` && cd -

will probably do what you wanted. The 2nd code suggestion he made should work because the directories to be removed would be given to the rm command as absolute pathnames.