Wouldn’t it be nice, especially in an office or educational setting to be able to lock your screen from the Mac OS X menu bar? Here’s how to do it:
1. Launch the “Keychain Access” application located in /Applications/Utilities.
2. Choose “Show Status in Menu Bar” from the View menu.
3. Now you have a lock in the menu bar. Use this menu to:
Lock the screen (activates Screen Effects which requires your password to unlock screen).
Lock or unlock your Keychain.
Launch the Keychain Access application.
Cool, huh?
Wow I love this tip…what a great way to add a quick free high powered secure screen saver with one click. Thanks
must be 10.2 only, I’ve got 10.1.5 and I don’t see a view menu when I open Keychain Access.
I was wondering about that. Now if only there were a key-combo to do it. Thanks for the tip.
I just move the mouse to the lower right corner of
the screen and the password protected screen saver activates.
I have to agree with Tim. Dragging my mouse to the corner of my screen doesn’t take _any clicks. I can do it with my eyes closed!
Moving your mouse to a screen corner won’t help you lock only the Keychain or launch Keychain Access – both of which can be done by adding the lock icon menu to the menu bar.
The problem I have with the locking screen saver is when you accidently put the mouse in that corner. I do it frequently but if I had to type my password in everytime I did that I’d be quite frustrated.
This just gives you another option for keeping your computer out of the hands of “evil doers”
The activation of screen effects when you move your mouse to one corner of the screen is set in the “hot corners” option of screen effects, in system preferences. It doesn’t (by default) lock your screen…just activates the screen saver.
Oh, come on, Andrew. Just tell the screen saver to require a password.
This is a great tip. I hate to have to wait 5 minutes for the screensaver to lock my screen.
For people using 10.5, it’s in Keychain Access utility’s preferences.
Or check out this handy mac app to lock your screen whenever you want with a double click:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/screenlock.html
I’ve documented a way of locking your Mac OS X session using a single key chord here:
http://www.markwheadon.com/blog/2009/02/lock-screen-mac-os-x/
Cheers,
Mark
Hi Handymacapps.com,
It did it. Great App!! Cool effect!!
Thanks much
Snehal
AWESOME – THANKS!!!!!!!!
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Nice….. very useful, if only I could hook a short cut key to that, then it would be perfect.
Really cool, i love this tip.
Keyboard shortcut, here you go:
ctrl+shift+eject
Locks the screen and the macbook 🙂
@Mickey, perfect now I love my mac.
what a great way to add a quick free high powered secure screen saver with one click. Thanks
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