[HOWTO] - Lock your screen

profx

profx

ill never 4get watsisname
If you go to
Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access.app

then go to show package contents

/Contents/Resources/Keychain.menu

double click Keychain.menu and you get a small lock icon in the menu up by the date/time.
It activates your screen saver with password protection, even if your system prefs are not set up to lock it normally.

I have seen lots of threads from people wanting to know how to do this, it turns out apple did provide a way!!

There doesn't seem to be any way to activate this feature from within the keychain app so showing package contents is the only way of loading the menu item. From the menu you can then lock the screen
 
or just go open KeyChain Access then click view on the menu bar and drag down to "show status in menu bar"

And yes that was a great find. Wish there was a shortcut to it though. guess i can't be too picky, though. One step at a time.

Ver
 
locking the screen this way is the same as password protecting the screensaver. just turn on password protection in the screensaver pref pane and set an activation area.

i have my machines set so that whenever i walk away from my desk i just push my mouse pointer to the upper right hand corner and that activates the screensaver...then when i return i move the mouse or hit a key and i ma prompted to enter my password...

simple.
 
lol i have the exact same setup... to keep the prying eyes of my suite-mates away from my stuff... hehe.. i love it, as i stand up i just toss the mouse to the upper right
 
hey thanks guys, I've been looking for something like that.

I don't want my screen saver allways password protected, but for the times I do, this is nice - easier than turning on password screen savers and then activating it each time.
 
open KeyChain Access then click view on the menu bar and drag down to "show status in menu bar"
 
Man that was so easy I am embarrassed I asked. I figured because of the rural route to turning it on it was the same kind of deal.

Thanks!
 
You can also hold the command (Apple) key and drag the ".menu" items out of the menu bar. This generally only works on Apple stuff; third party menu additions are usually applications rather than menu items.
 
Since Mac Help is once again helpless, how do I TURN OFF screen saver password protection?

Thank you
 
Open System Preferences, Security, and then uncheck the box "Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver".

When I am at Uni and need to lock my display, I just turn on fast-user switching and select "show login window" from the drop-down menu. That way I can leave my computer open without people going nuts.
 
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