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Mac 101: Disabling automatic login

If you use your Mac as a public computer (or family computer), then you might not always want it to load your user account when the computer starts up. By changing one option in the Accounts System Preference pane, you can have your Mac display a list of user accounts upon startup.

Just open System Preferences and go to Accounts > Login Options. Click the "Automatic Login:" drop-down box and select "Disabled." Please note that you will need to authenticate as an administrator to change any of these settings.

You can further customize the "login window" by choosing either "List of users" or "Name and password." If "list of users" is selected, you will be prompted to click your user account name and give your password in order to login. If name and password is selected, you will need to type in both your username and password to login.