# Temporarily disable groups?

**URL:** <https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/temporarily-disable-groups/210141>\
**Category:** Rhino for Windows\
**Tags:** windows\
**Created:** [September 24, 2025, 1:02pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/temporarily-disable-groups/210141 "2025-09-24T13:02:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![erik6](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/erik6/32/765604_2.png) [@erik6](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/erik6)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2025, 1:02pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/temporarily-disable-groups/210141/1 "2025-09-24T13:02:20Z")

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Could we have a “temporarily disable groups” command?

When it is active, grouped objects do not behave like groups, but like single objects. It’s similar to picking objects with the Ctrl button pressed, but it will be more versatile (in certain situations).

The Lasso command would work for example. It’s impossible to select geometry in a group using that today (by turning on points you sort of can … but it is not the same).

Thanks

/Erik

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**Author:** ![jessesn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/jessesn/32/771224_2.png) [@jessesn](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/jessesn)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2025, 1:54am UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/temporarily-disable-groups/210141/2 "2025-09-25T01:54:54Z")

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> [@erik6](#):
>
> Could we have a “temporarily disable groups” command?

I think you can achieve it with Sub-Objects of selection filter, and fyi.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![erik6](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/erik6/32/765604_2.png) [@erik6](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/erik6)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2025, 7:03am UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/temporarily-disable-groups/210141/3 "2025-09-25T07:03:49Z")

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Great. That is exactly the functionality I’m looking for. Did not think about that. Thanks.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![erik6](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/erik6/32/765604_2.png) [@erik6](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/erik6)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 1:16pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/temporarily-disable-groups/210141/4 "2025-10-22T13:16:25Z")

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Actually. That is not really the functionality I’m looking for.

It’s great that it exists, but …

When you group (call the group “A”) something and click it, all the **objects** in that group A are selected.

If you enable “sub-objects” then when you click on one of the objects in the group A, it does not select only the objects in the group A, but also things like surfaces and curves.

What a command “Temporary Disable Groups” does is that it just makes all the individual objects act like individual objects (albeit they are grouped). You can move them around, scale them etc etc.

Scenario:

You have a fully furnished room inside a room volume with walls, floor, roof etc … You would like to move some objects around on the floor. Now all of this is grouped. If you use “Temp Disable Groups” you need to select objects in dropdown because it picks surfaces etc as well. Very cumbersome. Of course you can Ungroup and then Regroup, but it might be tricky if the group sits among other objects and is not easily pickable. (You would have to do a Named Selection.)

If there are hierarchies of groups, it would also be useful to be able to temporary disable any selected group somewhere in the hierarchy, not just temp disable for all groups everywhere.

**I think this feature would greatly improve the Group command.**

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kyuubimode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/kyuubimode/32/556077_2.png) [@Kyuubimode](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/Kyuubimode)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 3:27pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/temporarily-disable-groups/210141/5 "2025-10-22T15:27:25Z")

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I know this is not what you are talking about, but you can try using the [Block Edit New](https://www.food4rhino.com/en/app/block-edit-new) plugin, it allows for editing groups in isolation. It can address the situations you are talking about - especially your group hierarchy use case.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/wim/32/747482_2.png) [@wim](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/wim)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2025, 4:20pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/temporarily-disable-groups/210141/6 "2025-10-22T16:20:20Z")

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Hej Erik -

> [@erik6](#):
>
> Scenario:
> 
> You have a fully furnished room inside a room volume with walls, floor, roof etc … You would like to move some objects around on the floor. Now all of this is grouped

In this specific case, Ctrl+Shift+LMB lets you select individual pieces of furniture.  
Can you post a .3dm example of where this is not working?

> [@erik6](#):
>
> If there are hierarchies of groups,

There is no such thing in Rhino. Object can be part of different groups but there is no hierarchy of groups.

Apart from all that, I can only recommend to use named selections instead of groups…  
-wim

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![erik6](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/erik6/32/765604_2.png) [@erik6](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/erik6)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 5:59am UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/temporarily-disable-groups/210141/7 "2025-10-23T05:59:52Z")

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Hello Wim,

the “furniture pieces” are groups or simple objects. I can access them of course. Just the problem is that each thing that is picked, needs to be sorted out from a list (dropdown) of (mostly) surface elements and objects. So instead of just clicking on 10 objects and then moving them, for each there is list of at least two things, that needs to be selected. It is tedious and impractical. Also the problem with Ctrl-Shift-LMB is that it selects sub-objects, so in an complex environment where things overlap (being groups) you get parts of objects that you do not want in the selection (points, edges …).

And of course Rhino has a hierarchy of groups. If you do three groups (A,B,C) and then group them into one group (D), you have a hierarchy of groups. If you ungroup D, then you have A,B,C still as groups. But there is no way to access A,B,C when they are grouped. Not in a fast and simple way.

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/4X/4/3/1/4310f3401842a9e79f4412d9f3975ed920bd4c21.png)

Colours represent groups. All grouped into all-encompassing D group. How do you select the sub groups in an efficient manner ? (You can use names, you can do named selection) Groups are the absolutely fastest way to do this if you can somehow access them individually even when they are grouped (by temporary disabling grouping).

Of course, you can select D group. Do Isolate (Or Invert + Hide). Ungroup it. Perform whatever operation needed. Regroup. Un-isolate / Show.

There is space for improvement here. Other modelling software have temporary disable groups and the like.

As for Named Selections … I use them as well. Just I do not quite understand what is going on in the list of Named Selections. I do one named selection and after a while in the list I have 10… 20… 100 of the same named selection. Don’t really understand what is going on.

For me Object Names actually then work much better. I have programmed a command that picks all object with the same name based on objects already selected. Meaning I select one chair (named “dining set 01” and it then picks all object named such (if two diff. names are picked, then it picks all object named both names). The “SelName” command in Rhino is useless (cumbersome and time consuming) compared to that. I never use that. Please add that functionality to the core please.

Thanks

/Erik

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/wim/32/747482_2.png) [@wim](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/wim)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 8:04am UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/temporarily-disable-groups/210141/8 "2025-10-23T08:04:19Z")

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Hej Erik -

> [@erik6](#):
>
> How do you select the sub groups in an efficient manner ?

Since - under the hood - there are no “sub groups”, you can’t currently do that.

> [@erik6](#):
>
> There is space for improvement here.

Definitely.  
I’ve added this thread to [RH-34785](https://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-34785) Group Edit  
As you can see, though, it’s been on the list for a while. Hence my suggestion to look for a different way of organizing your objects.

> [@erik6](#):
>
> I do one named selection and after a while in the list I have 10… 20… 100 of the same named selection. Don’t really understand what is going on.

That would be good to get more details on. I’ve search both Discourse and YouTrack and can’t find previous reports on this behavior.  
-wim

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![erik6](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/erik6/32/765604_2.png) [@erik6](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/erik6)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 9:42am UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/temporarily-disable-groups/210141/9 "2025-10-23T09:42:57Z")

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![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/4X/e/9/1/e917d6496da014ce3eeaf47f3dcd835519160ddb.png)

I’ve created a Named Selection. Will now work for a while with this …

After doing Boolean Split on some object in the Named Selection set I have this:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/4X/5/9/4/594962bbffb2715cee95eb5783be18673673fdab.png)

I didn’t ask for another named selection … so why does that happen ? If I split the group all the stuff should split into the same NS - no ?

A couple more boolean split 🙂

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/4X/e/1/5/e151e8e3edca30f6c6b6c820bd352cbc690ec793.png)

After another half an hour the panel will be full with stuff.

For me this is a bug. Rhino should not create named selection of it’s own. It’s confusing.

/Erik

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/wim/32/747482_2.png) [@wim](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/wim)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2025, 1:12pm UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/temporarily-disable-groups/210141/10 "2025-10-23T13:12:50Z")

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Hej Erik -

> [@erik6](#):
>
> For me this is a bug. Rhino should not create named selection of it’s own. It’s confusing.

Thanks. I agree → [RH-90107](https://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-90107) NamedSelections: Copies are Automatically Created  
-wim

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![erik6](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/user_avatar/discourse.mcneel.com/erik6/32/765604_2.png) [@erik6](https://discourse.mcneel.com/u/erik6)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 9:28am UTC](https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/temporarily-disable-groups/210141/11 "2026-04-14T09:28:55Z")

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Wim,

I would like to revert to the “Temporary Disable Groups” missing command.

I know there are other ways of doing things, but in most software the group/ungroup function is what is used. And it works very well.

You’re saying that there are “no hierarchies” of groups. But Rhino has hierarchies of groups, they are just not so obvious. If you group several (sub-)groups together, then you have an hierarchy. And you can dismantle that hierarchy by ungrouping the top-level group, thus being able to access the sub-groups.

What I’m asking for is a simple command that temporarily disables a group. The grouping connections are still there, just disabled. Meaning that the sub-groups can be worked with.

Using the Selection Filter “sub-objs” works partially, but it does not do what I’m asking for. Category “Sub-objs” is a much lager set than only “grouped objects”.

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/mcneel/uploads/default/original/4X/f/d/2/fd26debc2bd0516ccbb526ec9b36de458362c104.jpeg)

shower-set group

Now, if I want to modify the sub-groups in the group I need to ungroup first. Modify and the re-group again. There’s no other way of working with the sub-groups. (Sure Ctrl-Shift works, but it does not select the group - it selects a lot of objects in the group.)

It’s just such an easy thing to add to the group functionality. Temp Disable this group. Then enable again.

In a complex setting with 50 objects in the group and a lot of geometry around, it can be very hard to re-group a group again.

Thanks