1. A method comprising: determining that a threshold associated with a number of pending event notifications in a queue has been exceeded by an incoming event notification, where each event notification identifies a change to one or more data element entries within a computer system and where each event notification is associated with one or more parent levels of a hierarchical file system; identifying, using one or more processors, a plurality of pending event notifications that can be combined including determining that two or more event notifications have a common parent level; and combining two or more event notifications such that the number of pending event notifications, including the combined two or more event notifications, in the queue no longer exceeds the threshold number of event notifications, including replacing two or more event notifications with a single event notification identifying a change to the common parent level.