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Comment by aardvark179 | Hacker News Reader

Shift-Control-Eject/Power. Very quick to just hit those keys as you get up from your desk, and your mac is locked.

And Command-Option-Eject/Power will pout your Mac to sleep.

Win+L in windows, which can be difficult with an ergonomic keyboard with only a left Win key, because you have to use two hands (or be very lanky and limber).

Does anyone know of an easier way?

My first thought would be to re-map Win+L with AutoHotKey or similar. Or, just press start, and arrow up and over to lock (lots more keypresses though).

I'm no good with macros, but the start+arrow idea is great. For me it's only one more keypress, but I can do it all with one hand. Funny thing is, I use that combo at home to put my home computer to sleep, because I don't leave that running in between sessions. Thanks for the tip that I should have known already!

Don't you generally type with two hands? How often are you locking that this is a problem?

Everytime I get up from my desk, so once or twice per hour. Usually, I already have something in one hand, like a pad or cup of coffee.

You ought to retrain yourself, using the off hand modifier key is the correct way to type anyway.

Even if you don't type "correctly", it still doesn't seem like a big deal. I can't imagine anything easier than Meta-L.

> using the off hand modifier key is the correct way to type anyway

Please elaborate.

> I can't imagine anything easier than Meta-L

It's very easy when you don't already have a cup of coffee in your hand on the way to a meeting.

Don't know if this is different in 10.10.1 (Just switched to OSX a month ago so I have no prior experience with OSX)but this key-combo doesn't lock the screen, it starts the screen-saver.

If you want it to lock the screen you need to change your preferences in security and change the screen lockout time to "immediately" for it to act as a lock.

Checkout OSX hot corners to start your screensaver, it's easy to just toss your mouse to a corner and your screen is locked.

This is what I do. I just jump the cursor to the corner when I get up. Super easy.

I run Linux but use the iMac keyboard and have also mapped locking to shift-eject. I didn't know it was so close to the OSX bindings. Very easy to hit, yet hard to hit accidentally.

And if you have a MacBook, you can just shut the lid.

In my experience this is one of the things Apple still has yet to perfect. I frequently have a problem of my mid-2012 MBP not wanting to wake up when I open the lid no matter how many times I close/open it. Often I have to do a hard reboot.

To Apple's credit, this is also still a problem with PC laptops from what I hear.

Useful advice, but the MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro don't have an eject key (⏏).

Edit: Ah, I see now. Eject or Power depending on the model. Thanks.

Ctrl-Shift-Power on MacBook Pro (which is what he meant by Eject/Power).

Doesn't work for me on MacBook Air.

I found that I had to use Fn-Ctrl-Shift-Power on my Retina.

I set up hot corners so moving the mouse to the bottom right corner locks the computer.

But you still need to type in your password every time you wake up your mac, with this app you don't have to

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