Easy Ways to Lock Windows 11 PC Automatically After Inactivity

Did you know that Windows 11 can detect and lock your system after a few minutes of inactivity?

The security of the Windows 11 operating system is very important because it allows us to take care of important system data and user files while ensuring their integrity and availability. It is a common thing we leave the computer on, which allows other users to access and manipulate it.

For this reason, one of the windows 11 integrated methods for this process is to block the system when no activity is detected in it. For example, you can set Windows 11 to display the login screen after 300 seconds of inactivity.

You can do this setting through the Local Security Policy or the Windows 11 Registry Editor. For more details, follow the following guide from Bardimin.

Lock Window 11 PC via Local Security Policy

1. Open the “Local Security Policy“. You can open it by using the keyboard shortcut (WIN + R) to open the “Run” dialog box. Then type “secpol.msc” and click the OK button.

2. Next, navigate to “Security Settings >> Local Policies >> Security Options“.

3. Then on the right-hand panel, double-click on “Interactive logon: Machine inactivity limit“.
4. Type the amount of time in seconds. This time is the length of time it takes before Windows locks the screen automatically after detecting no activity. For example, 300 seconds.

Lock Window 11 PC via Registry Editor

1. Open the “Windows Registry“. You can open it by using the keyboard shortcut (WIN + R) to open the “Run” dialog box. Then type “regedit” and click the OK button.
2. Next, navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System“.

3. Then on the right-hand panel, double-click on “InactivityTimeoutSecs“.
4. Select “Decimal” and then add the value of “Value data:” to the length of time in seconds, for example, 300.  and click the OK button to save it.
5. Restart your computer.

If you don’t already have an InactivityTimeoutSecs DWORD, just right-click or hold down the Shift key while clicking on the free space in the right pane of the System key, select New, select DWORD Value (32-bit), enter InactivityTimeoutSecs as the name, and then press Enter.