Say I have a file ```/templates/apple``` and I want to

* put it in two different places and then
* remove the original.

So, ```/templates/apple``` will be copied to ```/templates/used``` AND ```/templates/inuse```
and then after that I’d like to remove the original.
Is ```cp``` the best way to do this, followed by ```rm```? Or is there a better way?
I want to do it all in one line so I’m thinking it would look something like:
```cp /templates/apple /templates/used | cp /templates/apple /templates/inuse | rm /templates/apple
```
Is this the correct syntax?
Or is there a better one?

While your approach is close, it is not quite correct. You cannot pipe the output of one command to the next command directly as you have tried. Instead, you should use the `-R` (or `-r`) option of the `cp` command to recursively copy a directory including all its contents, and then use the semicolon `;` to separate multiple commands.

So, the correct command sequence would be:
If so, does it make sense to do it in that order (first copying to ```used``` and then to ```inuse```)?
It seems logical, but wouldn’t it be better to copy to ```inuse``` first to avoid the risk of overwriting whatever is there instead? What is the safer way of doing it?
To be clear, my concern is to avoid overwriting something that exists in the destination folders in case I’m in a