However, for me, I think these methods take longer to setup and use. There are other methods of locking your Mac, for example you can enable a Keychain Access menu in your menu bar or configure a screen saver Hot Corner. Press any button to wake the display up and you should be asked to authenticate with your user’s password to unlock the screen:
This is not sleep mode so your Mac will still function, you have just put the display to sleep. In both cases, you’ll see your Mac’s display shut off immediately, while the system continues to run in the background. Use the keyboard shortcut of holding down the Control+Shift+Power keys together (if your Mac does NOT have an internal Optical Drive or an Eject key).Use the keyboard shortcut of holding down the Control+Shift+Eject keys together (if your Mac has an internal Optical Drive and an Eject key).To do this you can perform EITHER of the following: Once you have the password feature setup, you are ready to toggle display sleep. Step 4: Close System Preferences and you’re done! Step 3: Click the checkbox next to ‘Require password after sleep or screen saver begins’ – you can select either immediately or a preferred time interval. Step 2: Open the “Security & Privacy” preference pane and select the “General” tab. If you do not have the password required feature enabled, then follow these simple steps to set this up on any Mac: The easiest and quickest way to lock an OS X screen is to put the display to sleep, ensuring you have configured your Mac to ask for a password after sleep or screen saver. This is an updated version of that blog for Mavericks as I wanted to add a couple of new comments and an even quicker way in Mavericks to achieve a locked screen.
Back in June 2012, I blogged about ‘ How to Instantly Lock your Mac OS X Screen in Lion’.