Will deleting all but the most recent messages in Gmail clear my personal folders as well?

Question

I want to delete all my mail from Gmail except the most recent items (from within 1 month).

If I delete all email, will the mail in my personal folders also be deleted?

Answer 1

1. Search using a date limiter, e.g., before:2015/04/25; adjust the date as necessary ¹
2. Check the box to select "All Mail"
3. You'll get a message at the top similar to "All 50 conversations on this page are selected. Select all conversations that match this search"; click the link to select all the messages (the message will change to let you know that all the messages are selected)
4. Click "Delete" ^{2 3}

All of those messages will now be added to your "Trash" label and will be automatically deleted in 30 days. And, yes, that will include anything you've removed from "Inbox" and put in custom labels.

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¹ By default, a search will ignore items in Trash and Spam; to also include messages in those special labels, add in:anywhere to your search
² Depending on how many messages you have, this may take quite a bit of time.
³ Instead of deleting, you might want to apply a label, just so you can go through and ensure that you're not deleting messages you want to keep.