This is one of the things I love most about Mac OS X: Apple just keeps adding features that often eliminate the need for third party solutions to simple problems. In this particular case, we’re [...]]]> Wow. Didn’t take long for Snow Leopard to render my previous hint on how to lock your Mac’s screen utterly obsolete.

This is one of the things I love most about Mac OS X: Apple just keeps adding features that often eliminate the need for third party solutions to simple problems. In this particular case, we’re going to use a combination of Automator, a terminal command, Snow Leopard’s new improved Services and a system-wide keyboard shortcut to enable a hotkey that will suspend the currently logged in user session and display the Login Window as though you had chosen the “Login Window…” option from the Fast User Switching menu extra.

I know, enough with the chatter, get on with the tutorial! Just follow these steps and you’ll be locking your Mac running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard like it’s running Windows XP! Wait, did I just write that? Shudder. Sorry, I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth. Here’s the tutorial:

Choosing a template for your Automator workflow

1. Open Automator (in your Applications folder) and choose Service from the list of templates provided and click the Choose button.
2. In the left hand column under Library, select Utilities.
3. In the second column, drag “Run Shell Script” to the right hand pane.
4. At the top of the right hand pane where you dragged the Run Shell Script action, click on the menu next to “Service receives” and choose “no input”.
5. Copy and paste the following Terminal command into the empty text area of the Run Shell Script action:
   

   /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend

   The entire command should be entered on a single line and note there is a space after “/Menu\”.



Completed Automator action, ready to save (click to enlarge)

6. Choose File–>Save, and give the new service a meaningful name like “Lock Computer” that will appear in the Services menu. Once you’ve done that, you can go to the Services menu (located in the current application menu, next to the Apple menu) and your newly created service should appear there.
7. Next open System Preferences –> Keyboard –> Keyboard Shortcuts and select Services in the left column.


Setting the keyboard shortcut (click to enlarge)

8. Scroll down to the bottom and under the General category, you should see your newly created service listed there. Select it, then Double-click close to the right side of the selected line to reveal a field where you can enter a custom keyboard shortcut. Enter an easy to remember but unique keyboard shortcut (I decided to go with ctrl+option+command+L), and then quit System Preferences.

That’s it! Go ahead and test your keyboard shortcut!

Welcome back! As you should have just seen, pressing the assigned keyboard shortcut fast user switches to the login screen leaving all your programs running in the background waiting for you to log back in again. If you’re more mouse inclined, you can of course also lock your screen by choosing your Automator action from the Services menu. All accomplished with the awesome customization tools included with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard!