Lock Computer Shortcut?

It is even simpler (I think) than using a key command in OS X once you set it up.

(A) System Preferences > Dashboard and Exposé

There are four blank buttons each representing a screen corner. You can set one of these up for specific actions, including the screen saver;

(B) System Preferences > Security

About halfway down there is a box to check that activates the need for a password when using sleep or the screen saver.


With those all set, as you walk away, move the cursor to a corner of the screen and your screen saver is on.

That works, but it is all to easy to accidentally lock your screen with a wild mouse move. here is a better way.

Open Keychain Access and go to Keychain Access Preferences. Click on the General tab and select the Show Status in Menu Bar option. A small lock icon will appear in your menu bar. Close the Preferences window and quit Keychain Access. Now click the lock icon in your menubar and choose Lock Screen to start your screen saver.

You can even define a keyboard shortcut for the Keychain Access Lock Screen menu. First make sure the Lock Screen icon is the leftmost of your Apple-provided menubar icons. Hold down the Command key and drag the lock icon to the left edge of your existing icons, then drop the icon. This step is necessary to make this trick work. Now open System Preferences, and click on the Keyboard & Mouse pane. Click the Keyboard Shortcuts tab, and then click the plus sign to add a shortcut. Leave the pop-up menu set to All Applications, enter "Lock Screen" for the Menu Title, and then define a keyboard shortcut to use.

Thanks for the tip. But I could not Command-drag it over the QuickSilver&smcFanControl icons on the menubar to the leftmost...and the keyboard shortcut defined not work either...do I have to disable QS and/or smcFancontrol?

I don't know. Is it possible to drag the two problematic icons to the right of the lock icon? It sounds like the add-on menu icons force themselves to the left. That is very poor behavior, if it is true.

No the two icons can not be dragged to the right either. But I found the Ctrl-F8 shortcut opens the padlock on menubar then arrow down to "Lock Screen" and enter/return. One workaround for this is to assign a shortcut with Ctrl for Lock Screen, for example, Ctrl-F9, then first ctrl-F8 goes to the padlock then release F8 and press F9. But this is still not as handy as something like Win-L on Windows.

Hi
You can put your Mac to sleep by pressing the Option-Command-Eject keys on your keyboard and make sure you have "require password when you awake this computer from sleep or screensaver" enabled ( Located in Security on your system preferences) this will in effect lock your computer from the keyboard

Hope This Helps

iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9)