Mac Lock Screen Settings

A new System Settings panel in macOS Ventura gives you control over when your Mac locks and what appears on the Lock Screen. It is important to review these settings and set them up to be as secure as possible for your situation.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at the Lock Screen settings on your Mac. 
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In macOS Ventura in System Settings there are variety of preferences that you can set that determine how your Mac's Lock Screen looks and works. To get to these settings go to System Settings and then scroll down on the left to Lock Screen. Now the first set of preferences here deals with the sequence of what happens to get to your Lock Screen. First your Screen Saver will start. Then your Display will go to sleep. Then you would be locked out of your Mac until you enter your password again.
Now if you're using a MacBook you're actually going to have two settings for when your display goes to sleep. One for when it is plugged into power and the other for when it is on battery. This way you can have your display go to sleep faster when it is on battery to conserve power and take longer to get there if you're plugged into power.
So the first setting is for Screen Saver. If you choose not to use a Screen Saver, like I do, you just set this to Never. Otherwise you can set it for a certain amount of time before the Screen Saver comes on. When the Screen Saver comes on all you need to do is just press a key, like the spacebar, and it would exit Screen Saver mode and you would be back to working. Next you've got how long until the display will turn off. This, of course, is your Mac's sleep mode. You can set that for various amounts of time. Note that if you set your Screen Saver to go on in 20 minutes and you've got display inactive for only 10 minutes you're going to get a message here saying that your Screen Saver is never going to actually go on because your display will go to sleep before it ever gets to the 20 minutes for the Screen Saver to start.
Now after your display is inactive there's an amount of time before your Mac is locked. So this is a critical security feature. A really good time to set this to is 5 seconds. 5 seconds gives you enough time that if you're actually sitting at your Mac and the display goes to sleep you can just reach over, hit the spacebar, and it will wake up again. But otherwise it will lock just 5 seconds after it goes to sleep. If you set this for a longer time it may seem more convenient but imagine leaving your desk alone in a place where other people can get to it and the display goes to sleep but because you've got this set to something else it's not yet locked. They can simply wake it up and have access to all your stuff.
You also have an option for Show Message When Locked. If you turn that On you can now set a message to appear on the locked screen. So you can include some contact information, for instance, and hope that maybe if you lose your MacBook and somebody opens it up and just sees the message on the locked screen they can now get in touch with you. How useful this is probably depends on your day-to-day situation. For instance if you're at school or on a large work campus it may be very likely that if you leave your laptop somewhere, like a meeting room or classroom, that it gets returned to you. However outside of those situations at least leaving some message there gives you a little bit of a chance of it getting returned. Here's an example of a message you can set and then this is how it would appear here on the locked screen.
Now you also have some options for what is shown on the locked screen. So, one is to have either a List of users or Name and Password. Name and Password is a little more secure but less convenient. Instead of seeing the users on the locked screen, clicking on a user, and then entering your password you would actually have to enter the name of the user account. So if somebody finds your Mac and doesn't even know who it belongs to, they won't get any information from the name of the user account and they would be missing two pieces of information to get in to it. The user name and the password. You could also decide whether or not the Sleep, Restart, and Shutdown buttons are present on the Locked Screen. Usually that is the most convenient option. Also when you created your User Account you were asked to provide a hint for your password. If you have this Off those hints won't be provided on the locked screen.
There are also a variety of other options in this Accessibility Options button. So these are all accessibility features. These switches determine whether or not these accessibility features are available on the Locked Screen. So, for instance, whether you can use VoiceOver, Zoom, Sticky Keys and other things while on the Locked Screen. If you don't use these normally then you don't need them on the Locked Screen. However, Accessibility Keyboard is useful. If you turn this On then you'll get a keyboard on the screen. It can actually type out a password using just your mouse or trackpad. This could be useful if you have keyboard trouble. Now note you're not going to see the Accessibility Keyboard when you simply lock your screen. You will see it if you're switching users. So on the Locked Screen just click the Switch User button here and you go to Switch User mode. But then you can certainly select this same user account to go back into and you would have the Accessibility Keyboard there to be able to enter the password using just your mouse or trackpad.
Now it is important that no matter what you have your locked sequence set to that if you know you're walking away from your Mac that you lock it immediately. So don't wait for these to happen. Instead you can just use the Apple Menu and then go to Lock Screen or note the keyboard shortcut, Control Command Q. You could also set a Hot Corner for it by going to Desktop & Dock, scrolling to the bottom, click on Hot Corners, and then set Lock Screen to one of the corners. When you move your pointer there it will lock automatically. If you find you turn it on by accident you can always hold a modifier key down, like say Command and then it would only happen if you moved your pointer to the top right and held the Command key down while doing it.
If you have a Mac with a Touch ID button on the keyboard you could press and hold that for one second and it will go to the Lock Screen. Also, of course, if you have a MacBook and you close the lid it will go to the Lock Screen but it will follow this setting here. So if you have it set to one minute, if you close the lid and you have up to one minute where you can just open it up and have access to everything. You definitely want to set it to 5 seconds or maybe even consider Immediately when using a MacBook and rely on closing the lid to lock it.
So the most important actions to take are to set your Screen Saver and Display Off time as you want and set your required password time to something very small, I recommend 5 seconds. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 4 Responses to “Mac Lock Screen Settings”

Robert Gramling

1 year ago

Good Morning Gary...
MBP M1pro chip.Ventura up to date. I am the only user. It never leaves the house. Is there a setting for leaving it on/accessible until I shut it off or put it to sleep by design, and can then turn it on/wake it with just the finger print, ie. no pass word sign in? THX Again Bob

Gary Rosenzweig

Robert: Sure, you can set it up like that if you really want. I wouldn't set it to "Never" go to sleep though. If you forget to manually put it to sleep it will sit there for hours or overnight with the screen on using power and using the screen for no reason. Especially if you have Touch ID, since it is so easy to just touch that and wake it up and login. You shouldn't be asked for a password unless too much time has elapsed or you have shut down. And don't shut down, almost never. See: https://macmost.com/a-beginners-guide-to-whether-to-shut-down-or-sleep-your-mac.html

Daniel

10 months ago

If you lock your screen, either manually or if it locks automatically, will downloads or things like exporting iMovie projects still operate? I’m always hesitant to lock the screen when things are working in the background in case they stop working.

Daniel: No, it should keep working when the screen it locked. Try it and see. When you are curious about something like this, it is always a good idea to give it a try, experiment.

Comments Closed.

Mac Lock Screen Settings

Comments: 4 Responses to “Mac Lock Screen Settings”

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