Log In and Out

Only one user can be active at a given time on your Mac. You can have user accounts for each member of your family, each student in a class or school, or each employee in a company. Since each of these accounts is protected by a password, only the user with this password (or an administrator who knows all the users’ passwords) can access the account.

Note

While only one user can be active at a time, Mac OS X’s fast user switching lets you change active users without actually logging out. See the following section for more on fast user switching.

When you’re working on your Mac and want to log out, select Apple Menu | Log Out, or press z-SHIFT-Q. An alert displays, asking you to confirm that you really want to log out. (See Figure 8-1.)

Figure 8-1: If you don’t reply to this alert within two minutes, the system logs out automatically.

Click Log Out to log out, or click Cancel to keep your session open.

After you log out, another window displays all the users on your Mac (Figure 8-2).

Figure 8-2: The Login window shows all the users who have accounts on your Mac.

Click your user name, and then enter your password in the Password field and click Log In (or press the ENTER or RETURN key). If you enter an incorrect password, the Login window shakes back and forth, as if nodding its head no. You have three tries to enter your password. If after these three tries you still haven’t entered the right password, a hint displays, if you have entered one in the Accounts preference pane (see the section “Create User Accounts,” later in this chapter). This hint should help you remember your password.

Note

Your password is very important. If you lose your password, check with your Mac’s administrator. If you’re the administrator, or the only user, you will have to reinstall Mac OS X and reset your password. Suffice it to say that you should keep a copy of your password in a safe place in case you forget it.