Hazel Suddenly Slows Down When Monitoring Large Cloud-Synced

Hello everyone,

I've been using Hazel for quite a while and it has become one of the most important productivity tools on my Mac. Recently, however, I've run into a problem that I can't seem to solve on my own.

I have Hazel monitoring several large folders that are synchronized through iCloud Drive and occasionally Dropbox. The setup worked perfectly for months, but lately I've noticed that Hazel becomes noticeably slower whenever a large number of files are added or updated. Some rules that used to trigger almost instantly can now take several minutes before they run.

A few things I've already tried:

Rebuilding the monitored folder structure.
Disabling some of the more complex rules.
Restarting Hazel and the Mac.
Checking Activity Monitor for excessive CPU usage.
Reducing the number of folders being watched.

Despite these changes, the delays still occur, especially when cloud synchronization is active. What's confusing is that manual rule execution works perfectly, while automatic triggering seems inconsistent.

I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar when using Hazel with iCloud Drive, Dropbox, or other cloud-storage services. Could this be related to file indexing, Spotlight, or perhaps the way cloud providers handle file changes?

I suggest checking the logs.

First, turn on debug logging as described here: https://www.noodlesoft.com/kb/hazel-debug-mode/

Go to Help->View Logs. Make sure to note (a) the time files were added and (b) the name of a particular file that isn't being processed promptly.

Post/email in an excerpt when searching for that file. Make sure to include the time and filename as mentioned above.