Can you quickly and temporarily disable Touch ID on a Mac?

Laurence5905 wrote:

Yeah, but that's that's multiple clicks, some scrolling, maybe a search because you don't know precisely where it is in the Settings app... It's not "press a button 5 times" quick. On the iPhone I can have the Face ID temporarily disabled in 2 seconds. There's nothing like that on the Mac?

There's nothing like that on the Mac. Full stop.

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Laurence5905 wrote:

Is there a way to quickly, temporarily disable Touch ID on a Mac?

On the iPhone, if you want to disable Face ID quickly and temporarily, you can press the power-button 5 times, or you can hold the power and volume-up buttons simultaneously for two seconds. Your face will not unlock the phone until you enter your PIN, then Face ID is restored.

Is there a similar thing on the Mac?

Best available: press and hold the Touch ID button for ~ten seconds. This will trigger a hard power-down. Which will then require the password at next startup. (Downside: hard shutdown.)

I don’t have a way to test this next possibility at present, and it’s not a great one: Fail the biometrics five times. Maybe try a knuckle or an unregistered finger? (For details, search for “five” in the Mac Touch ID doc.) (I’d hold for power-down.)

Alternatively, create a script or shortcut that runs this command when required:

bioutil -w -s -u 0

I’m going to be logging some feedback asking for an iCloud setting that locks out biometrics across all devices associated with an Apple Account, when there’s a five-click on any.

Laurence5905 wrote:

Is there a way to quickly, temporarily disable Touch ID on a Mac?

On the iPhone, if you want to disable Face ID quickly and temporarily, you can press the power-button 5 times, or you can hold the power and volume-up buttons simultaneously for two seconds. Your face will not unlock the phone until you enter your PIN, then Face ID is restored.

Is there a similar thing on the Mac?

Right on the Mac there is no Face ID to turn off

You can however turn Off TouchID in the Setting — that is the quickest easiest way

I would hope this is obvious in your >System Settings>TouchID & Password

see the other options there if that is your concern...

The only other option on the Mac—Delete the finger prints to eliminate the option all together

ref: Manage Touch ID fingerprints

Touch ID & Password settings on Mac

Use Touch ID on Mac

Can you tell us a liitle more about Why do you would need to do that quickly?

There may be a divergent way to get a similar end result.