How can I automatically remove files after they've been archived?

If you're using GNU tar, you can use the --remove-files option:

--remove-files

remove files after adding them to the archive

That's not portable though.

If your tar doesn't have that, you'll need to do it manually, in two steps.
I'd suggest you don't put the tar file in the directory you're packing up, but put it in the parent directory. That way you can simply rm * (possibly recursively) after tar is done.

[max@localhost zzz]$ touch 1 2 3 4
[max@localhost zzz]$ ll
total 0
-rw-rw-r-- 1 max max 0 Oct 18 16:13 1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 max max 0 Oct 18 16:13 2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 max max 0 Oct 18 16:13 3
-rw-rw-r-- 1 max max 0 Oct 18 16:13 4

To create a archive use this command

-c ---------> For Create a archeive

[max@localhost zzz]$ tar -cvf max.tar 1 2 3 4
1
2
3
4

[max@localhost zzz]$ ls -l max.tar 
-rw-rw-r-- 1 max max 10240 Oct 18 16:14 max.tar

To list a content of archive use this command

-t ---------> List all files in archive

 
[max@localhost zzz]$ tar -tvf max.tar
-rw-rw-r-- max/max           0 2012-10-18 16:13 1
-rw-rw-r-- max/max           0 2012-10-18 16:13 2
-rw-rw-r-- max/max           0 2012-10-18 16:13 3
-rw-rw-r-- max/max           0 2012-10-18 16:13 4

To extract use this command

-x ---------> To extract from archive

-v ---------> For verbose mode

[max@localhost zzz]$ tar -xvf max.tar -C direc1
1
2
3
4

Here -C extract the content to directory direc1

To extract a single file from archieve use this command

[max@localhost zzz]$ tar -xvf max.tar 1 -C direc1
1

Give the file name you want to archive in my case file name is `1`

[max@localhost zzz]$ tar -cvf max.tar 1 2 3 4 --remove-files

This will remove original files after achieving