Where to set up automatic blocking on a Mac. Add a trigger to the desired keyboard shortcut
There are times when you need to quickly block your Mac. At the same time, you need to leave for a short time, but you don’t want to turn off or put your computer to sleep. There are several ways to lock Mac OS X in an instant. In this case, to continue working, all you have to do is enter your account password.
So, six ways to block Mac OS X:
1. Log out using the combination Shift-Command-Option-Q. Not the fastest way, but reliable.
2. Install Dashboard widget, the only purpose of which is to quickly lock Mac OS X. All you need to do is open Dashboard and double-click on the Locker icon.
3. One of the simplest and quick ways solution to the problem: check the box Utilities -> Keychain Access -> Settings -> Show status in menu bar(Utilities -> Keychain Access -> Preferences -> Show Status in Menu Bar). After which in top menu A lock icon appears, by clicking on which you can instantly lock Mac OS X.
Before proceeding, make sure that your Mac OS X screensaver lock is set in your settings: System Settings-> Security -> General -> Require password.
4. Install active screen Mac to launch screensaver. To do this, go to System Settings -> Expose and Spaces -> Expose and select any angle. Now, to lock, all that remains is to move the cursor to a specified area of the screen. The only drawback: while working, you may accidentally get into active angle screen and lock Mac OS X.
5. If you are a switcher and are used to solving the problem of data security on a PC using the Win+L keys, then you can use a utility that assigns hotkey to launch the screensaver in Mac OS X. The application is called .
6. And finally, the most elegant way. If you iPhone owner, then you can use the AirLock utility. We will not dwell in detail on the program -. The program locks and unlocks your computer depending on how far your iPhone or iPod is from it. In other words, when you move away from your Mac with your iPhone, you will lock the computer, and when you approach it, it will automatically unlock it. Probably the most geeky way to solve the problem.
If you know other ways to quickly block a Mac, please speak up in the comments.
Putting your MacBook to sleep mode is convenient and useful option when you need to step away for a minute. As long as you've set an account password, Sleep mode allows you to lock your MacBook without turning it off, so you can quickly resume your interrupted work when you return.
There are several ways - seven, by my count - to put a MacBook to sleep. The first five require you to set a login password, and the last two allow you to lock your Mac without having to enter a password, which is useful if you want to be able to close the Mac's lid, for example, without having to enter a password when opening it back up.
Before we get started, let's first see how to enable login password. Go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy and check the box next to Require Password after sleep or screen saver begins. In the drop-down menu, you can set the password setting time, from immediately to 8 hours.
After setting a password, the following five methods will lock your MacBook:
1. Closing the lid.
Just close the lid and the next time you open it, you will need to enter your password to log in again.
2. Apple icon in the menu bar.
Also simple. Press apple icon, in the top left corner and select Sleep Mode.
3. Key combination.
There are two key combinations that effectively lock your Mac:
Use Control-Shift-Power to lock your MacBook. (For older MacBooks with optical drive, use Control-Shift-Eject.)
Use Command-Option-Power to put your MacBook to sleep. (For older MacBooks with an optical drive, use Command-Option-Eject.) Both combinations will turn off the display, but "sleep" saves more power by setting the processor to reduced energy consumption, slowing down the rotation hard drive and stopping background tasks, among other things.
4. Hot corners.
Go to "System Preferences > Display & screen saver" and click on the "Hot Corners" button to assign an action when you hover over one of the four corners of the screen. Select one of the options "Sleep" or "Start screen saver" for one of the corners.
5. Add an icon to the Dock.
This requires more steps, but you can add an icon to the Dock, which launches a screensaver and locks the Mac.
- Open Finder and go to "Go > Go to Folder".
- In the text field, enter next command: /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Versions/A/Resources/ and click the "Go" button.
- In the resources folder that opens, find the ScreenSaverEngine file and drag it to the Dock.
The last two methods will lock your MacBook, regardless of what login password you have set.
6. Keychain Access.
With Keychain Access, you can add an icon to the menu bar to lock your MacBook.
- Open the Utilities folder in your Applications folder.
- Open Keychain Access.
- Go to "Keychain Access > Settings".
- Check the "Show keychain status" checkbox in the menu bar.
7. Fast user switching.
This is another menu bar option for locking your Mac.
- Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups.
- Click the lock in the lower left corner and enter your account password to make changes."
- Click on "Login Options".
- Check the "Show fast user switch menu as" checkbox. (You can choose your full name, account name, or icon.)
You can also find out
One fine day I started using mac os x as my main operating system. And since then, I sometimes find that some of the features I'm used to are missing in one form or another. Having worked with computers for more than 10 years, I have developed a persistent habit of locking my desktop if I leave even for 2 minutes.
First of all, I decided to look in “Hot Keys”, in which you can configure almost everything, but “locking” was not there. I had to search a little, and as it turned out, there are several solutions. Conventionally, they can be divided into 2 methods. First, blocking by asking for a password to disable the screen saver. Second, quick user change.
Screensaver lock
In order to enable the password request to disable the screen saver, go to System Preferences->Security and enable the checkbox “Require password to wake up computer from sleep or screen saver”It would seem that this is not a bad option, but waiting for it to turn on is not at all interesting. The most annoying thing is that I was unable to use a simple (without third-party application) method to turn on the screensaver using any key combination. We Google, we read, we remember about Expose. You can activate the screensaver by moving the cursor to one of the corners.
For a very long time this method was the most favorite.
Quick user change
It turned out that not everything is so bad in the Danish kingdom; there is a functionality for switching between users, which blocks the desktop for entering a password. It is also quite easy to activate. To do this, go to System Preferences->Accounts. Click on the lock image to log in and enable the “Enable fast user switching” checkbox.Now we have beautiful icon to switch users.
Click on it and select the “Login Window...” item and observe a cool effect when blocked.
Returning to the keys, there is zero advancement, since it’s normal to switch users with one combination. I won’t even describe the perversions with the chain of combinations.
Quicksilver
After some time I discovered free utility quicksilver and its functionality of triggers that can be attached to hotkeys. And then the idea came to me to write a small script to turn on the screensaver using the combination cmd+shift+L. For this we need:1. Install quicksilver
You can download it from quicksilver.en.softonic.com/mac, installation is trivial.2. Write a script to launch the screensaver
For writing, we will use the standard application “Script Editor.app”. We launch and write the following text:Tell application “ScreenSaverEngine”
It should look something like this:
3. Save the screensaver activation script
Save it wherever you like (I saved it in the home directory), remember the path.4. Add a trigger to the desired keyboard shortcut
To do this, open quicksilver, triggers tab.Triggers in QS
Click on the plus sign at the bottom and select Hotkey. Add the script written in the previous step to the cell, as in the picture.
Bonus functionality
Later, I came up with an idea: why not pause iTunes when the screen is locked? To do this, we just need to add the following lines to the end of the script that launches the screensaver:Tell application “iTunes”
With the new functionality, life becomes a little easier.
It happens that you need to step away from the computer, but you don’t want to log out - there are a lot of programs running or you’re downloading a long-awaited torrent from the unsinkable thepiratebay. It’s a rare pervert who likes it when someone rummages through his intimate files in the owner’s absence, so let’s look at ways to block access to a computer running Mac OS X. From somewhere in long-term memory I'm told that this is called "lock the screen".
Unfortunately, in Mac OS, none of the screen lock options are obvious - I was not able to find them directly at the time.
Enable password prompt when exiting sleep and screensaver
There is an item in the system settings that includes a password request when waking up the computer or exiting screensaver mode. This method is the simplest and was not difficult to find. Let's go here: System Preferences → Security → General. We put a tick in the right place.
After enabling this option, you will need to enter the user password to exit sleep or screen saver.
Close the screen using a keychain
The previous method is not suitable for everyone, since you need to wait for the screensaver to turn on, and this takes several precious minutes. There is another option, it is less obvious for a novice user (especially a switcher), since it requires the involvement of the Keychain, which in Windows environment has no standard analogue.
So, let's run the program (it is in the folder Programs → Utilities), go to the menu Keychain → Settings → Basic settings, enable the item Show status in menu bar.
A lock will appear in the menu bar, clicking on which brings up the keychain menu. We are interested in the first point - close the screen. To be honest, I have never used the others.
Fast user switching helps us
There is another way to protect your computer from intruders - take advantage of the opportunity provided by the fast user switching mode. If you share a computer with someone else, then this option is quite good. I am a sole proprietor, so I present this method only for the sake of completeness.
Go to system settings again System settings → Accounts→ Login options. We enable fast user switching, choose what to display in the menu bar - name, short name(login) or picture.
A new item in the menu bar gives access to fast switching users, as well as to the point Login window, which does what we need - it locks the computer until one of the users enters the password.
I should turn it on at home last mode, and sometimes I get burned, yes...
It seems like that's all standard methods lock the computer. Is there some more third party applications, like MacLock, ScreenLock, but I don’t see a need for them - there’s enough for any case of paranoia.
A little curious if one of the options can be assigned to hot button. I don't know how yet.
In case your Mac computer falls into the hands of third parties, Apple has a system that allows you to prevent criminals from using the device. However, sometimes, unfortunately, the owner himself may suffer from this, and in this case, locking a Mac turns into a severe headache.
It all started when one of our readers encountered an unpleasant problem: his iCloud password was remotely guessed and his computer was locked. It would seem that if he is the owner of the computer, Apple should be able to unlock the device without any problems. But everything turned out to be not so simple.
Procedure iPhone lock or iPad and Mac computer seriously different. In the second case, the EFI chip is blocked and needs to be reprogrammed, but this cannot be done remotely. We contacted Apple support and made sure that to unlock you really need to contact the company’s authorized service center.
But the most interesting thing is that the unlocking service turned out to be paid, since this is not a defect in the device, and the services charge money for it. Our reader from Murmansk was asked for 4,500 rubles for this. And this is in an authorized service center.
We interviewed representatives of several authorized service centers in Moscow and found out the average pricing policy for unlocking - from 1,500 to 2,000 rubles. Cheaper, what can I say. Also, when contacting the service center, you will need a receipt to confirm that you own the computer. They have special equipment for EFI flashing.
We can help you, for this you need documents about the purchase of the device, the cost of the work is 2,000 rubles, if attackers blocked the computer and deleted the data, then it is no longer available. The unlocking procedure consists of soft reset protection mode enabled with motherboard Your device. No actions are taken with your disk.
As we managed to find out, the corresponding work is also carried out by unauthorized service centers. In this case, the EFI is unsoldered, the data is corrected using a programmer, and then the chip is installed back. This is not the simplest matter, so the price for the service is appropriate.
Unlocking Mac Third-party organizations are also involved - in this case you need to pay them a certain amount (), and then send them your computer for EFI reprogramming. Whether this is advisable is up to you to decide, but we would not recommend it. However, these guys will not ask for a purchase receipt or supporting documents.
There are other dubious organizations that accept payment and then send it to you by email special file, which supposedly unlocks the Mac. Here, as they say, at your own peril and risk, although there are video instructions.
So there are two ways out of the unpleasant situation with a locked computer - do everything in an authorized service center or trust third-party organizations. It's strange that Apple charges money for this even if everyone has it necessary documents. Moreover, even authorized service centers can set arbitrary prices - in this case, they are controlled only by the FAS, but not by Apple.
To avoid getting into this situation, under no circumstances register your Apple ID on mail.ru or yandex.ru. Accounts with exactly these postal services are most often hacked, according to Apple representatives.