Do you need to step away from your Mac and want no one to be able to access and snoop through your files? Here are five simple ways to protect access
Putting your Mac in a Stop state in case you need to leave it momentarily is convenient, as well as useful. On the one hand, it’s one of the energy-saving options designed by the Cupertino company to reduce battery consumption; on the other hand, it allows you to protect the information contained in the computer.
If you have set up a password account, the Stop status will allow you to lock the iMac or Macbook. In order to use it again, you’ll have to enter the access key you chose when you first turned on the computer (or the one from your Apple account, if you decide to log in with it), otherwise it will remain locked. This, however, is only one way to protect access to the Mac and, with it, the data contained in the hard disk of the Apple computer: the user will have at his disposal different tools to lock the device and avoid that some snoop in the office or at home go snooping through our files.
Password unlock after activating the Mac screensaver
By modifying the Mac’s default settings, you can require a password to be entered even if you activate the screensaver after a period of inactivity. Just go to the System Preferences (by clicking on the gear icon in the dock), double-click on Security and Privacy and, in the General tab, make sure that the check mark is placed on the line “Require password… after screensaver stops or starts” and set the time period to wait (from immediate to 8 hours).
Lowering the screen
If you have a Macbook, you can simply lower the screen and close the laptop to lock it. Unless, of course, you have changed the default settings of the operating system, disabling the initial login with username and password.
Keyboard shortcuts to lock the Mac
In case you are in a hurry and want to lock the Mac before getting up from the keyboard, you can use convenient keyboard sequences. To lock the computer you can use the sequence Control-Shift-Power key (to be pressed at the same time, of course), while to stop the Mac you have to press the keys Command-Option-Power.
Corners
With macOS Yosemite Apple introduced the Active Corners feature, which allows the user to “use” the four corners of the desktop to perform an action of their choice from the list. Among them, there is also the possibility to send the computer to a stop and activate password access accordingly. Go to System Preferences, click on Desktop and Screen Saver and then click on Desktop. Here click on Active Corners in the bottom right corner and, in the pop-up menu, select the corner where you want to activate the desired action (in our case, activation of the screensaver).
Change user quickly
Another way to prevent spying on our computer is to create a secondary user and use it to “mask” our activity. At this point it will be enough to activate the quick user switching feature to switch from one profile to another in a matter of moments. To do this just go to System Preferences, click on Users and Groups and then on Login Options. Here click on the lock in the lower left corner and enter your administrator credentials, so as to unlock the editing of preferences. Now select the “Show quick user change menu as” option and choose the secondary profile. To change the profile in case of an emergency, simply click on the quick change user icon that appears in the menu bar (the one at the top of the screen, that is) and click on the name of the other user.