Dear Aunt TUAW: I need a prettier lock screen

Dear Aunt TUAW,

I wanted to ask if Auntie TUAW could look into how to change the lion lock screen. Many sites show different lock screens. My lock screen is just black and I wanted to change it so if you could look into it I would appreciate it thanks.

Your loving nephew,

LaRonn B

Dear LaRonn,

Yes, you can customize your lock screen. And you can do this in several ways. For example, you can add a custom message. Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General. Click the lock, authenticate, and then use this option to show custom text.

Auntie suspects that's not entirely what you're looking for, however. So here's another approach you might take. In the same Security & Privacy settings, check the Require password option. This makes the lock screen activate as soon as your screen goes to sleep.

With this option, once your screen sleeps, the lockscreen not only activates but does so over your current screen background. Pretty, isn't it? It's hard to see here, but there's even a status display at the top-right corner of the screen.

You can sleep your screen using an Expose smart corner (Preferences > Mission Control > Hot Corners) or you can use the Control-Shift-Eject sequence. If your keyboard doesn't support that, you can go completely geeky and write your own command line utility.

*kof*.

For the curious, if you ever need a screenshot of your lockscreen, you can ssh in from another computer. Make sure the screen is active, so the login prompt is shown, and then use /usr/sbin/screencapture from the command line with one argument, a path to the destination file.

Hugs,

Auntie T.

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Dear Aunt TUAW, I wanted to ask if Auntie TUAW could look into how to change the lion lock screen. Many sites show different lock...

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ElfOdin

A minor annoyance with the lock screen: the time that is displayed in the upper-right corner is not in the format that I have set for time in the Language & Text system preference. The lock screen shows AM/PM time, but my selection for the system is HH:mm. Has anyone found a way to change this format? I've not found anything useful in a plist.

August 18 2011 at 5:30 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

snarglr

anyone have any ideas on where the value for the lock screen message is stored? be nice to have that message rotate on lock.

July 28 2011 at 6:39 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Nick Anderson

Sometimes it's inconvenient to have the screen lock every time it sleeps. To avoid having to enable that option, simply use the Keychain Access menubar icon, which includes a "Lock Screen" option on its menu. To setup, launch Keychain Access, and in the Preferences (General tab) select "Show Keychain status in menu bar". Quit Keychain Access and the menubar icon will stay put across reboots etc. Now the screen will lock only when you specifically ask it to.

This option has been around since way back when, though of course only since Lion does it do something pretty :-)

It shows the screensaver behind the password window, BTW.

July 25 2011 at 1:15 PM Report abuse Permalink +1 rate up rate down Reply

chris.a.laurent

...just wait for the new version of "Onyx", which is a free utility. It did offer the possibility to select the background image behind the login window under Snow Leopard. The Lion version is in beta and doesn't offer the possibility just yet but check it regularly and you might be surprised!

July 25 2011 at 11:29 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Timothy Graham

Lock Screen 2 gives you a keyboard pattern and the slide to unlock functionality. This is really what Apple should have done since they're merging the two OS's anyway! I picked it up while it was free, but it looks like it's on sale now for 50% off or $2! http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lock-screen-2/id445423011?mt=12

July 25 2011 at 8:34 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Auntie ... I followed your directions but I get the screen saver (not the desktop) behind the lock screen. :-(

July 25 2011 at 7:52 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to RR's comment

palmzealot

Whether the screensaver or the desktop shows up depends on how the computer became inactive. If the screensaver came on and locked the Mac, then it will show up behind the lock screen. If the Mac just went into sleep mode, then the desktop will show up behind the lock screen.

July 25 2011 at 8:07 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to palmzealot's comment