Screen Saver vs Power Save

Sobchak
Contributor

I created a profile that starts the screen saver after 15 minutes and one minute later requires a password. The profile works, but it seems to have an unintended side affect. If a user has Energy Saver settings that put the computer to sleep after say 5 minutes it gains the one minute delayed password requirement from the Screen Saver profile.

In Windows these password requirements are separate. It looks like on Macs they are linked together. Is that correct? Can you have a password requirement on just one of them?

2 REPLIES 2

mm2270
Legendary Contributor III

To my knowledge, no, the setting is basically, whenever the Mac either goes into sleep or screensaver mode, a countdown is started, and once it surpasses the value specified in the security setting, it requires unlocking the Mac with a password. So yes, if the Mac is set to sleep, after it sleeps, unless the Mac is woken up within 1 minute, its going to require a password to get back into it.

If you look at the actual GUI setting the profile is affecting in System Preferences > Security, its labeled as:

Require password [1 minute] after sleep or screen saver begins

Edit: Corrected to say 1 minute instead of 5 minutes. I misread what you wrote.

Sobchak
Contributor

That is what I was seeing as well. I guess I was just hoping my eyes were lying to me, or there was some hidden way to separate the two.

I guess I need to look at forcing sleep to occur sometime after 15 minutes then.