Question 1 - I have an updates folder in my gmail that has thousands of emails that take up storage. If I delete all of these messages, will they also be deleted from the individual folders where I saved them?
Question 2 - I have thousands of emails in my archives folder that take up storage. If I delete all of these messages, will they also be deleted from the individual folders where I saved them?
Yes, emails will be deleted from all folders in both scenarios you described.
Gmail does not have concept of folders, it has tags or labels. Same email can have update label, and any other label, it will appear in both labels. Deleting it from anywhere will delete it in all labels.
Update is a label. Archive means its no longer in Inbox.
Try to search by size: operator in Gmail to find bigger emails, as described at Gmail Search Operator Page
size:10000 // 10000bytes
or
larger:5M //larger than 5MB
Make sure to empty trash to recover storage space. If you are still facing storage full, consider buying in 100GB total for $20/year or $2/month via Google One.
