equivalent of windows+L in osx snow leopard

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Is there a quick way to lock my Mac?

whenever i used to leave my system i just press WINDOWS+L in my windows system. Now i have macbook pro with snow leopard OS and i am searching for equivalent of windows+l.

So my question is what is the keyboard shortcut to lock macbook pro?

i know the shortcut COMMAND+SHIFT+Q. But this shortcut is for logout not to lock the system.

This question has been answered over at Superuser SE. Fast User Switching/Apple Menu — sorens, Sep 21 '11 at 14:35
@sorens: thanks good to know. Actually I like more my option as it also sends to sleep my screen and does not require much configuration. Depends if Vivart wants exactly the same as WINDOWS+L or just wants to lock the Mac before going away (as I do) — Matteo, Sep 21 '11 at 14:42
I'd leave this as not a duplicate, personally. I didn't know windows + L was a keyboard shortcut to lock the computer. Yes - it's the same answer, but the search terms to get to it seem quite different to me... — bmike, Sep 21 '11 at 14:50
@bmike there's also the "windows+L" keyword in the other question. — Loïc Wolff, Sep 21 '11 at 14:55

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:45

control+shift+eject sets the display to sleep. If you have then the option "Require password immediately after sleep or screen saver begins" set in "Security & Privacy" it will lock your machine.

This will only put the display to sleep not the system: not exactly what you asked but the additional screen sleep is not bad (less energy consumption :-)

There are other answers here that point out ways to establish a automation to lock the screen from a keyboard command of your choosing. See

The last two show several methods to script this. You can then use LaunchBar or FastScripts or another tool to launch the action you prefer.

I think you meant control, not command. :-) – Harv Sep 21 '11 at 18:32 — Harv, Sep 21 '11 at 18:32

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 21 '11 at 14:39

There isn't really a "lock" feature in Mac OS X. Your best option is to enable the "Require password after sleep or screen saver begins" option in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General. Then, either put the screen or entire computer to sleep. To put just the screen to sleep from the keyboard, type Shift+Control+Eject. This will make the screen go blank, but your computer will still be running. To put the entire computer to sleep, type Command+Option+Eject. This will cause all running processes to stop until the computer is woken up.

equivalent of windows+L in osx snow leopard

2 Answers2