The Mac login screen: what appears there and what you can change

The Mac login screen is the few seconds between pressing the power button and getting to work. It shows a name, a round picture, a password field, and a small set of controls in the corners. Some of that is adjustable and some of it is fixed by design, and the settings are split across two different panes: Users & Groups and Lock Screen. This article goes through what actually appears there, how to skip the password on startup, why that setting is sometimes dimmed, and what to do about the menu bar that greets you one second later.

What the login screen is made of

Four things occupy the login window. First, the list of accounts registered on that Mac, each with its name and login picture. Second, the password field. Third, the background. Fourth, a handful of helper controls placed at the edges of the screen, such as the clock, input source switching, and the accessibility options.

Of those, three are under a normal user's control: the login picture, whether accessibility features are enabled at the login window, and whether the password prompt appears at startup at all. The account names in the list come straight from the accounts themselves, so changing a name means editing the account. The background is not designed to be swapped freely, which is the single most common source of disappointment for anyone arriving at this topic hoping to put a personal photo behind the password field.

The login window and the lock screen are usually discussed as separate things, but macOS keeps their settings close together. On macOS Ventura 13 and later there is a Lock Screen item in the System Settings sidebar, and it holds both the password prompt timing and the accessibility options that apply before anyone logs in. When something about the login screen needs changing, that pane is the first place to look.

Skipping the password at startup

Automatic login is the setting that removes the password prompt when the Mac starts up. Apple describes it plainly: when automatic login is turned on for a macOS user account, the Mac automatically logs in to that account during startup.

On macOS Ventura 13 or later, the path is Apple menu, then System Settings, then Users & Groups in the sidebar, then choose an account from the "Automatically log in as" menu and enter that account's password. On earlier versions of macOS the same setting lives one level deeper: System Preferences, Users & Groups, click the lock, enter the account password, click Login Options in the lower-left corner, then choose an account from the "Automatic login" menu.

What automatic login does not do is remove the login screen from daily life. Apple is explicit about the limit:

Whether or not an account automatically logs in, you might still need to log in after manually logging out, switching back from another user account, or locking your screen. Source: support.apple.com

So the setting buys back exactly one password entry per boot. On a desktop Mac that stays at home and gets restarted once a month, that is a small win. On a laptop that gets locked every time its owner walks to the kitchen, the login screen still appears many times a day, and the useful work is elsewhere: making the return trip fast rather than removing the trip.

When the automatic login setting is dimmed

A common outcome is opening Users & Groups and finding the menu greyed out, or finding that the account name is missing from it. Apple lists three circumstances in which manual login is required:

• FileVault is turned on. Full-disk encryption asks for credentials before the system is running, which is incompatible with logging in without them.
• The Mac is supervised by an organization, using a profile that prohibits automatic login. A work machine falls into this category more often than not.
• The account is set up to use an Apple Account password to log in. In that case a message may appear: a user with an encrypted home folder cannot log in automatically.

None of these is a fault to be repaired. They are the setting being closed on purpose. FileVault in particular is worth more on a portable Mac than automatic login is, so trading it away to save one password entry is a poor exchange. The better move is to leave encryption on and make unlocking cheap, which is what Touch ID and Apple Watch unlocking are for.

The password prompt after sleep and the screen saver

The second half of the login screen question is not about startup at all. It is about what happens when the display goes dark during the day. Apple notes that a password may still be required when a Mac wakes from sleep or stops using the screen saver, and that the behaviour is configurable.

On macOS Ventura 13 or later: Apple menu, System Settings, Lock Screen in the sidebar, then set "Require password after screen saver begins or display is turned off" as desired. On earlier versions: System Preferences, Security & Privacy, then the "Require password after sleep or screen saver begins" setting.

Two details matter in practice. A long grace period means the screen can be dark while the Mac is still open to anyone who touches it, which is the failure case people imagine they are protected from. And Apple points out that this setting cannot be changed if iPhone Mirroring is configured to authenticate automatically, so a control that refuses to move is not necessarily broken. A sensible split is a generous grace period on a machine that never leaves the house and a very short one on anything that travels.

Changing the login picture

The round image next to each name is adjustable. The steps: Apple menu, System Settings, Users & Groups in the sidebar, then click the login picture next to the login name. From there the options include a Memoji, an emoji, a monogram with a chosen background colour and initials, a photo taken with the camera, an image from the photo library, and a set of suggestions. After picking an image, dragging inside the circle moves it and the slider zooms, then Save commits the change. Dragging an image file from the Finder onto the current picture is the shortest route when the image is already on disk.

One restriction is worth knowing before troubleshooting it. Apple states that the picture for another user who is currently logged in cannot be changed, and that such a user is indicated by a checkmark on their picture. That user has to log in and change it, or log out. On a shared family Mac, one account whose picture refuses to change is almost always an account left logged in through fast user switching.

Accessibility at the login window

Accessibility features are often needed before login, not after it, which is why they have their own switch. Apple's page states that certain accessibility options can be turned on in the login window to make logging in easier, reached through Apple menu, System Settings, Lock Screen in the sidebar, then Accessibility Options.

Several properties of this setting are easy to misread. The options turned on there, such as VoiceOver or Zoom, are enabled in the login window for all users of that Mac, not just the person who set them. Enabling them may require an administrator name and password. If Accessibility Keyboard or Switch Control is selected, the current keyboard or switch settings are applied in the login window for all users. And anyone logging in can use accessibility shortcuts to turn the options on or off temporarily at the login window.

Because the login window and the logged-in session keep separate settings, turning on Zoom at the login window only is a recipe for confusion: magnification disappears the moment the desktop appears. To keep it, turn the same option on in Accessibility settings, reached through Apple menu, System Settings, then Accessibility in the sidebar.

One second later: the menu bar

Past the password field, the next thing on screen is the strip along the top. Apple calls the icons on its right side status menus, and describes them as showing the status of things like battery percentage and Wi-Fi while letting you take actions such as turning on Bluetooth. What appears there is chosen in the System Settings app, by clicking Menu Bar in the sidebar and selecting the checkbox next to each control.

That pane is also where a shared Mac gets its account switcher. The steps are to click Menu Bar in the sidebar, then either select Fast User Switching and choose an option from the pop-up menu on the right, or click Add Controls, click Fast User Switching on the right, and choose Add to Menu Bar. The same control can be sent to Control Center instead, with Add to Control Center. Once it is in the menu bar, switching accounts is a click in the top-right corner, and on a Mac with Touch ID a fingerprint can do it.

The problem is that this is the same few centimetres that every background app wants. Sync clients, VPNs, battery tools, clipboard managers, screenshot utilities and audio switchers each take a slot, and on a MacBook with a notch a long app menu pushes the right-hand icons out of view entirely. An account switcher or an input menu that cannot be seen cannot be clicked, which turns a one-second action into a hunt.

Deciding what stays in the menu bar

A workable rule is to sort every icon by why it is there. Icons kept for reading, such as battery percentage or the clock, lose their purpose when hidden. Icons kept for clicking, such as an input menu or an account switcher, only need to be reachable. Anything clicked once a month belongs behind a divider, brought back on demand.

Clearing the strip has an order to it. Uncheck the standard controls that go unused in Menu Bar settings first, since that costs nothing. Then turn off icons in the apps that offer the choice in their own preferences. Only what survives both passes justifies a menu bar manager for macOS, and the one property worth checking is that hidden icons stay usable rather than merely out of sight: the Features page lists which of them apply here. Several tools in this category exist at different prices, including free ones, and a dated price table sits on the How it compares page.

What to change first

Turn on automatic login only if the Mac stays in one place, and leave FileVault alone if it travels. Set the password grace period on the Lock Screen pane to match how the machine is used, then spend the remaining effort on the menu bar, since that is the part of the startup sequence that gets slower every time an app is installed. A trial of Koffret takes fourteen days and no card, which is long enough to find out whether hiding icons keeps them usable.