Locking Your Screen When You Step Away

Leaving your laptop unlocked while you grab a coffee takes a moment to fix and can take weeks to undo if the wrong person walks past. Locking your screen is the single easiest security habit there is.

How to lock it

• Windows: press Windows key + L.
• Mac: press Control + Command + Q, or close the lid if you’re not using an external monitor.

Both take under a second and don’t close anything you’re working on — everything is exactly as you left it when you unlock and come back.

Tip

Make it a reflex: lock your screen every time you stand up, even for “just a minute” — that’s exactly the moment it matters most.

Why it matters more than it seems

An unlocked, signed-in laptop is effectively an open door into everything you have access to — email, files, internal systems — with no password required, because you’re already signed in. Someone doesn’t need to be a skilled attacker to cause damage this way; a curious visitor, a delivery person, or an opportunistic passer-by is enough.

Let Windows do it for you too

As a backstop, Windows and Mac both lock automatically after a period of inactivity:

• Windows: Settings → Accounts → Sign-in options → set a screen lock timeout.
• Mac: System Settings → Lock Screen → set how soon the screen locks after it goes to sleep.

Company laptops usually have a sensible timeout already configured — this is just a safety net, not a replacement for locking it yourself when you step away.