Is there a way to add password protection to individual applications? I know there are paid apps available for this, but are there any free ways?
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1)
It's free to password protect your Mac.
I know, but I want to protect only individual applications...
Who from? If there are other users of the computer, set parental controls on their accounts and disable those applications.
This seems like it wouldn't work too well.You want to enter a password for every app you use? That seems like you will spend a lot of time typing and not using apps.
You could always create an ecrypted folder, password protect that, and drag the apps you want to use in there. Generally you want to keep apps in the Applications folder, but you can move them about. This way, to launch the app, you must first opent the protected folder.
That's about the only free solutionI can think of.
Bryan
I just want to password protect a couple apps that I don't want others to mess with. For example, password protect a game so that when I friends use my computer, they won't start playing the game and messing up my progress.
I've not heard of anything like that.
Bryan
Best advice is keep your friends away from your Mac. Then they stay your friends. If you can't trust them are they really your friends?
And remember, keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Er... no, if you keep your enemies closer, they will be able to access your un-password protected apps. Forget what I just said.
Bryan
So there are no apps like this, except free?
mdee4 wrote:
So there are no apps like this, except free?
No
If you want your friends to use your computer, make them an account or let them use Guest. You really do not want other people, friends or not, using your account.
Austin Kinsella1 wrote:
If you want your friends to use your computer, make them an account or let them use Guest. You really do not want other people, friends or not, using your account.
Agreed. A really stupid and poor decision it is to let your friends use your Mac by way of your account. Setup their own account or let them use the guest login.
Move the apps you want to protect to a password protected Disk Image. Then put an alias of them in your Applications folder. When an app is run it's going to ask you for the password of the Disk Image.
Parental Controls work too.
Geez, I don't know why everyone is giving this user a hard time. I can think of plenty of circumstances where I may want a single app password protected.
Because there are simple ways to achieve what he wants, but not the way he wants to do it. And as this thread is 9 months old he has probably found a solution now, are you offering a new solution?
How to password protect applications on Mac?
