Lock your Mac Desktop with the Locker Widget
Jan 19, 2010 - 12 Comments
Locker is a very simple Dashboard widget that does something Mac OS X should have included by default, it instantly locks your Mac desktop.
All you have to do is open your Dashboard and double click the Locker icon and you’ll end up at a login window where you need to enter a login and password to regain desktop access.
The uses for this are many, but I am still surprised Apple does not provide a simple way to lock your Mac desktop with Fast User Logout outside of either a screensaver or fast user logout with Shift-Command-Option-Q.
Anyway, check out Locker, it’s no frills and gets the job done.
+1 for Vincents approach
I used MacLoc in the past however it is a bit buggy – I found out about the keychain capabilties from this article a few weeks ago and much prefer this approach: http://bit.ly/ce0C5v
I like maigrait’s suggestion of using Ctrl + Shift + Eject however it does not lock my macbook pro – but rather just blackens the screen … any idea why this is?
Matt –> System Preferences – Security – Require password after sleep or screensaver begins
excellent thank you everyone i can now lock my mac
I just use a service available to all applications that runs
do shell script “‘/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession’ -suspend”
and set to a keyboard shortcut.
For those of you who use Quicksilver,
enable the Extra Scripts plug-in.
It includes Lock Screen, Shutdown, logout, get Ip…and many many more.
Check the whole list at http://docs.blacktree.com/quicksilver/plug-ins/extra_scripts
yeah, or you could download this automator action
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/lockdesktop.html
then invoke with quicksilver with your hotkey then start to type “Lock…”
Actually if you do what vincent said above, you can do it even faster than clicking the lock icon. Do CTRL+Shift+Eject. Bosh your screen is locked. Far superior…
or you can put this command where you want:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend
@vincent – I liked your method a lot better than the posted and as well as my own I had previously been using. I made an Automator action that ran a script to send the computer to the login screen.
Utilities -> Keychain Access -> Preferences -> Show Status in Menu Bar
Then just click on the lock icon in your menu bar and choose ‘Lock Screen’. Fewer clicks than the tip above once enabled and it’s built in to OS X.
I simply set the hot spot lower corner to go to screensaver and I have it set to require login. It is simple and highly effective.
I simply move the mouse to the corner and done.
Also…. after a designated time… it locks.. done.
Enough said.
I use MacLoc which works perfectly and has a dashboard app or or menu bar option. But if you want it in the dashboard Locker looks good.