Moved too many files into a folder!

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Moved too many files into a folder! Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:54 pm • by kidtreo
Was / am loving Hazel and about to buy, but while trying to consolidate an admittedly LOT of files (terabytes of .JPG's) and now even on an M1max CPU w/32GB of ram, all attempts to open the folder result in eternal "loading" dialogue and no ability to see or move files in that folder including separating them into sub folders to fix this issue.

Might anyone have ANY ideas on how to move or copy in ANY way to reduce the file count in that folder? This sucks and represents months of consolidating. Thank you kindly!
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Re: Moved too many files into a folder! Thu Sep 15, 2022 9:25 am • by Mr_Noodle
Hazel can move stuff but you need to come up with a strategy on which files to move there. You can create a rule then to enact that.
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Re: Moved too many files into a folder! Fri Sep 16, 2022 6:31 pm • by kidtreo
Yes - but Hazel now beachballs whenever I try to ask it to move files out of this one overloaded folder? Can anyone weigh in from Hazel tech support? Am I simply out of luck?! Thank you!
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Re: Moved too many files into a folder! Mon Sep 19, 2022 9:43 am • by Mr_Noodle
When is it beachballing exactly? Note that the app is not responsible for running your rules so it beachballing is not related to Hazel doing any processing.
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Re: Moved too many files into a folder! Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:22 am • by kidtreo
This is a rather awful and debilitating mess I've gotten myself into - and an issue you may wish to alert users too given the ease of moving files with your delightful app. Apparently, even though there is a theoretical file limit in the billions under OSX Monterey, exceeding far fewer files than that within the same folder will overwhelm OSX to such an extent that any folders with that "threshold" number of files or greater, will no longer be able to be opened / viewed / accessed - making it *impossible* to remove files from that folder to mitigate the issue. Apple Senior Tech Support recommends formatting the drive and starting over - but Ive just spent MONTHS consolidating files and deleting duplicates, and very much hope not to have wasted all that time and effort. Ive tried using Hazel to accomplish this, but it simply seems to hang, never update and never move any files. This is a tough problem to solve, and ANY "deep file / Unix / file manipulation magic / knowledge" that might "blindly" move files without assessing the entire directory towards recovering this folder would be immensely appreciated! Again, you may wish to alert your users to this not so obvious "gotcha" limitation of OSX.

Thank you (and anyone else) that might have some ideas and knowledge on how to fix my problem!
kidtreo
 
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Re: Moved too many files into a folder! Tue Sep 20, 2022 9:11 am • by Mr_Noodle
I'm still unclear on the specific problem here. How many files do you have in one folder? Are you familiar with using the commandline?

What apps specifically are beachballing and what are you doing in the apps when that happens?
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Re: Moved too many files into a folder! Thu Sep 22, 2022 11:39 am • by kidtreo
Mr_Noodle wrote:I'm still unclear on the specific problem here. How many files do you have in one folder? Are you familiar with using the commandline?

There are 10's of thousands of files - I can't be sure but likely more than 100,000

What apps specifically are beachballing and what are you doing in the apps when that happens?


Hazel beachballs / goes non responsive - even OSX monterey latest build on a fast M1max machine won't show contents and hangs on "loading" error. I'm not super command line savvy sadly and my couple attempts haven't been successful though hoping that or *something* works - this is so ridiculous lol and I sincerely appreciate your help. I think I need an approach that "blind copies" without "assessing the entire folder" if that makes sense? thanks again...fingers crossed and looking forward to your thoughts.
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Re: Moved too many files into a folder! Fri Sep 23, 2022 9:20 am • by Mr_Noodle
When does Hazel beachball? When it launches? If not then, then what action are you taking? How about other apps, like Finder?

Next time it happens, do the following:
- Launch Activity Monitor
- Select Hazel in the list
- Do "Sample Process"
- Post/email the output.
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