How to Lock your Mac Screen with an iPhone
Step 1. Install Shortcutify on your iPhone First, install the Shortcutify app on your iPhone. Also, make sure you’re running the latest iOS and have the Shortcuts app is installed on your iPhone. Once you have the apps installed and ready open Shortcutify.
Step 2. Find your Mac’s local IP Address This method only works on local Wifi so make sure your Mac is connected to the Wifi. If you don’t know the IP address of your Mac, go to System Preferences> Network> Your IP Address. Note down the IP Address, we’ll need it later.
If you need help finding out your IP address, you can check out this guide here. Step 3. Enable Remote Login on your Mac As the shortcut would essentially log in to your computer remotely, you would have to enable Remote Login feature on your Mac first. To do this, go to System Preferences> Sharing> Enable Remote Login.
Step 4. Setup Shortcutify app Now, open the Shortcutify app on your iPhone and tap the Mac option, it would ask you to enter the IP address of your mac and login credentials. Enter the details correctly and proceed.
After that, we need to enable the accessibility settings on the Mac, to do this, tap the Accessibility button in the app on your iPhone.
It should prompt a dialog box on your Mac. Simply navigate to System preferences> Security and Privacy> Privacy> Accessibility> enable “sshd-keygen-wrapper”.
Click the Padlock to lock the changes. Step 5. Setup the Shortcuts You can do a variety of things with this app such as capturing screenshots, toggling apps, and injecting keystrokes. However, we’ll focus on locking the Mac. Open the Shortcuts app and tap the + button on the top right corner to create a new shortcut and tap Add Action.
Search for macOS: lock screen in the search bar and tap the action to add it to your Shortcut. Tap next to proceed to the next page.
Give your shortcut a name and you’re done. I named my shortcut “lock my mac” and every time I run this shortcut, it will lock the mac. You can even ask Siri to do it for you.
Unlock your Mac with iPhone
If you want to set up a Siri Shortcut to unlock your Mac with the iPhone, doing it is just as simple. You just need to create another shortcut and add macOS: Wake and Log In action to your shortcut. It would require your password, so add it in the text field and save your shortcut. You would be able to unlock your Mac by simply tapping the shortcut or asking Siri to run the unlock Shortcut.
Closing Words
This was a quick way to set up your iPhone to unlock and lock the Mac with just a simple command. I agree it has a few steps but it’s a one time process and you’d certainly enjoy it. Let me know if you face any challenges while setting it up. Also Read: 6 Best Siri Shortcuts Apps for Power Users
