Hide paused folders in Hazel menubar item list?

Is there a way to hide paused folders in Hazel menubar item list? If not, would like to see this added.

Not sure if that's a good idea. I suspect people would then complain that certain folders aren't appearing in the menu. Is there a reason why you want this?

[EDIT] Also, you can still trigger runs manually for paused folders.

I have a ton of paused folders and it just clutters up the menu. I guess I should just cull them, but paranoid about deleting complex rule sets. I suppose I can export them and remove. Just a lot of work after many years of Hazel usage.

And yeah I noticed after I posted that you can manually run rules on paused folders. Was thinking more it would be a settings preference. Thanks.

Can you describe the folders you are monitoring and why so many? Do any groups of them have similar rule sets and/or reside under a common folder?

Yeah maybe I am using Hazel inefficiently. I do have monitored folders that are contained within another folder that is also monitored.

For example, I have two folders on the desktop that I drop files for printing. Each folder is monitored in Hazel separately. The Desktop is also monitored, with different rule sets.

Mostly I do this to keep the rule sets manageable. But maybe I am just doing all of this incorrectly.

Is it better to have less folders, and dump all the rules into the top-most parent folder possible? In other words, just have Hazel monitor User, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, and then put all my rules under each of those only?

It depends. If you find yourself using similar rulesets between folders then in that case, you should definitely looking into consolidating them For instance, is there a reason for two print folders?

Last edited by gcoghill on Thu Dec 14, 2023 5:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Specifically for the print folders, I use multiple folders because the action is different for each and couldn't figure out how to do it all within one rule set (it seemed not possible to me).

Each folder will rename the file, which is then sent to another folder which will run a shell script for a print preset: one for 1-sided, another for 2-sided printing, and a third for 4x6 label printing to a different printer. It seemed to me that I needed a separate folder for each distinct action.

The rules are very similar, but each set covers distinct criteria. If I could figure out how to do it all with one folder I would have.

For example, I need to process some of these multi-page PDFs as 1-sided prints, so using Page rule criteria to count pages doesn't work and I couldn't figure out how to otherwise distinguish the multi-page PDFs that should be printed 1-sided vs those to be printed 2-sided.

As a test, I just rebuilt my Desktop rule set to do process these files using only the Desktop rule set rather than rule sets for the individual folders, and it was definitely possible with "run rules on subfolders" and "enclosing folder" rules.

That said, I do like seeing visually each folder that gets rules applied so I know where things are being done. It's more obscure when everything is buried in a "run rules on these subfolders" rule. But I also can see how this might be inefficient and overkill. It's just easy to forget where some of these folders are nested, and where to look to edit the rules (or run them manually).

It also makes more sense for me to be able to just manually run the "print" rules for that folder rather than manually run the entire "Desktop" rule set when I know I just need to get some files printed and Hazel hasn't yet processed that folder (although it usually happens super fast).

But I also did find a lot of poorly-structured rules that I was able to consolidate by looking through all of these folders and rule sets.

I don't have an answer for your printing situation but as concerns those folders with rules that you are keeping that are not active, why not create a folder group? Then you could put them in that grouping and simply close it so they don't show and clutter your screen.

Another solution, which I implemented long ago before there were folder groups was to create a folder for Hazel to monitor and put all my rules I want to save for posterity in it after setting them to inactive. Then I simply deleted the folder and Hazel just kept the rules there for me.

klind wrote:I don't have an answer for your printing situation but as concerns those folders with rules that you are keeping that are not active, why not create a folder group? Then you could put them in that grouping and simply close it so they don't show and clutter your screen.

Another solution, which I implemented long ago before there were folder groups was to create a folder for Hazel to monitor and put all my rules I want to save for posterity in it after setting them to inactive. Then I simply deleted the folder and Hazel just kept the rules there for me.

Thanks. I do have the paused folders in a group, but I was trying to de-clutter my Hazel menubar menu. They still show up there.

Interesting idea on adding all the archived rules to a single folder. I'll have to see if that would work for me. Appreciate the tip!