diff --git a/setup/git_post_checkout_hook.py b/setup/git_post_checkout_hook.py
index 06eeefbd56..7dc20282b9 100755
--- a/setup/git_post_checkout_hook.py
+++ b/setup/git_post_checkout_hook.py
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ if flags == '1':  # A branch checkout
                 shutil.rmtree(extdir)
             subprocess.check_call(['python', 'setup.py', 'build', '--only', ext])
 
-    subprocess.check_call(['python', 'setup.py', 'gui'])
+    subprocess.check_call(['python', 'setup.py', 'gui', '--summary'])
 
     # Remove .pyc files as some of them might have been orphaned
     for dirpath, dirnames, filenames in os.walk('.'):
diff --git a/setup/gui.py b/setup/gui.py
index 912760ddf8..ba63aad143 100644
--- a/setup/gui.py
+++ b/setup/gui.py
@@ -15,6 +15,10 @@ class GUI(Command):
     PATH  = os.path.join(Command.SRC, __appname__, 'gui2')
     QRC = os.path.join(Command.RESOURCES, 'images.qrc')
 
+    def add_options(self, parser):
+        parser.add_option('--summary', default=False, action='store_true',
+                help='Only display a summary about how many files were compiled')
+
     @classmethod
     def find_forms(cls):
         # We do not use the calibre function find_forms as
@@ -34,7 +38,7 @@ class GUI(Command):
         return form.rpartition('.')[0]+'_ui.py'
 
     def run(self, opts):
-        self.build_forms()
+        self.build_forms(summary=opts.summary)
         self.build_images()
 
     def build_images(self):
@@ -55,10 +59,9 @@ class GUI(Command):
         finally:
             os.chdir(cwd)
 
-
-    def build_forms(self):
+    def build_forms(self, summary=False):
         from calibre.gui2 import build_forms
-        build_forms(self.SRC, info=self.info)
+        build_forms(self.SRC, info=self.info, summary=summary)
 
     def clean(self):
         forms = self.find_forms()
diff --git a/src/calibre/gui2/__init__.py b/src/calibre/gui2/__init__.py
index ba4c4b5d09..e41968581e 100644
--- a/src/calibre/gui2/__init__.py
+++ b/src/calibre/gui2/__init__.py
@@ -1119,7 +1119,7 @@ def find_forms(srcdir):
 def form_to_compiled_form(form):
     return form.rpartition('.')[0]+'_ui.py'
 
-def build_forms(srcdir, info=None):
+def build_forms(srcdir, info=None, summary=False):
     import re, cStringIO
     from PyQt4.uic import compileUi
     forms = find_forms(srcdir)
@@ -1131,10 +1131,12 @@ def build_forms(srcdir, info=None):
         ans = 'I(%s%s%s)'%(match.group(1), match.group(2), match.group(1))
         return ans
 
+    num = 0
     for form in forms:
         compiled_form = form_to_compiled_form(form)
         if not os.path.exists(compiled_form) or os.stat(form).st_mtime > os.stat(compiled_form).st_mtime:
-            info('\tCompiling form', form)
+            if not summary:
+                info('\tCompiling form', form)
             buf = cStringIO.StringIO()
             compileUi(form, buf)
             dat = buf.getvalue()
@@ -1149,6 +1151,9 @@ def build_forms(srcdir, info=None):
                     'from PyQt4 import QtWebKit\nfrom PyQt4.QtWebKit import QWebView')
 
             open(compiled_form, 'wb').write(dat)
+            num += 1
+    if num:
+        info('Compiled %d forms' % num)
 
 _df = os.environ.get('CALIBRE_DEVELOP_FROM', None)
 if _df and os.path.exists(_df):