Problem: Your Mac idle screen locks way too fast and (among other issues) you keep getting kicked off the VPN.
TL;DR Solution: Change System Preferences → "Battery" → "turn display off" feature as desired.
Does your Mac screen go black very quickly, and you never actually see a graphical screen saver? You can fix this annoyance!
More detailed explanation
There are several different parameters here: "Display sleep" and "screensaver." These are controlled from System Preferences panels:
- Energy Saver
- "Turn display off after"
- Desktop & Screen Saver → ScreenSaver tab
Separately, one can choose whether to have a locking screen saver and whether to have a grace period ("nudge the mouse or hit a key"), as set in:
- Security & Privacy → General tab
The problem is that paranoid types at NASA/NIST/DHS security have set two of these three and you cannot change them. So the screensaver is set to turn on after 20 minutes and the grace period is zero ("immediately")
But with administrator privileges (root), you should be able to change the Energy Saver setting. [Ask us for "15 minute admin" if you need this.]
One aspect of this is the relationship between screen saver and energy saver. Both are set in locking modes. But if the energy saver kicks in first, you will never even see the screensaver! Is this true for your computer?
So, the trick is to set the Energy Saver timeout to more than 20 minutes.
How things will change
What you're probably seeing now:
| From start of inactivity | What you're seeing |
|---|---|
| 0-2 minutes (on battery) | screen remains on, as usual |
| after 2 minutes | screen goes dark. |
Once you change it (to, say 30 minutes), you should observe the following:
| From start of inactivity | What you'll see |
|---|---|
| 0-20 minutes | screen remains on, as usual |
| 20-30 minutes | screen saver appears |
| after 30 minutes | screen goes dark. |
The 30 minutes shown above is just an example. The system will bark at you if you set a long time, warning you of extra energy usage. (But you do have the option to set longer times, including "never")
Very useful shortcut
If you want to lock your screen very quickly without having to define "lock now" hot corners of your display(s), there is a great keyboard shortcut introduced a few years back:⌘-^-Q
(command-control-Q)
(Also available as Apple menu → Lock Screen)
(Just be careful not to accidentally do ⌘-↑-Q (command-shift-Q) which is the Logout shortcut!)
I hope this explains the interactions of these three settings!
David Friedlander
October 2022