Set a password to use a certain application

[Eric Lewis]

I use apple mail for my email on the main computer at my house

we only have 1 account and thats it.

is there a way to set a password..so to open mail you need a password? is that possible

thanks

 

[xUKHCx]

You could put mail inside an encrypted disk image. However the emails are accessible from the library folders, but it does prevent causal reading of the emails. It may be possible to put the emails inside an encrypted disk image as well but I don't know.

 

[Eric Lewis]

You could put mail inside an encrypted disk image. However the emails are accessible from the library folders, but it does prevent causal reading of the emails. It may be possible to put the emails inside an encrypted disk image as well but I don't know.

i just need it to be not opened unless there is a password

i dont care if my friend or family family member
can seek through the system and find the email through librarys

i just dont want it to be opened unless u type a password

 

[GSMiller]

I dunno why this isn't possible/easier on not only Mac OS X but Windows as well. It'd be a pretty useful standard feature IMO.

 

[lexus]

I am interested in this for other apps as well.

 

[Eric Lewis]

I am interested in this for other apps as well.

darn no one has an answer yet

maybe i dont want my sister to use my skitch application

just me

 

[xUKHCx]

Well you can put any application inside an encrypted disk image.

Create an encrypted disk image (make sure you don't let keychain remember the password). Put the application inside the disk image and create an alias to the application inside your application folder/whereever. Then when you open the alias it will ask for the password to open that disk image and the application will automatically open. It won't however unmount the disk image once you have finished using the application. Not ideal but workable.

 

[aaronw1986]

darn no one has an answer yet

maybe i dont want my sister to use my skitch application

just me

xUKHCx did answer in an above post.

 

[Eric Lewis]

Well you can put any application inside an encrypted disk image.

Create an encrypted disk image (make sure you don't let keychain remember the password). Put the application inside the disk image and create an alias to the application inside your application folder/whereever. Then when you open the alias it will ask for the password to open that disk image and the application will automatically open. It won't however unmount the disk image once you have finished using the application. Not ideal but workable.

how do i do this? im so lost and confused

 

[xUKHCx]

Disk Utility - New Image (button at the top).

Save As: Best to call it the application name
Location: Anywhere you want, perhaps a folder in your home directory called myapps or something like that
Volume Size: Custom make it a few MB bigger than the app (the larger the app the bigger the headroom you need)
Encryption: 128-bit AES (don't really need 256 for this)

Then when you press create a dialog box will pop up asking for the passord for the disk image. Make sure to deselect the "Remember password in my keychain" option.

Then it appears on the desktop like a normal .dmg. Drag the application you want inside the disk image making sure that it moves rather than copies (hold down cmd while dragging). Then create an alias (either ctrl+click then "Make Alias" or cmd+opt while dragging) and put the alias back into your application folder and or dock. Then to test unmount the .dmg from your desktop and open the alias.

Side note: you can even give the .dmg the application icon if you really want to make it easier to know which volume to unmount from the desktop if you are going to do lots of applications or you can stick all of your applications inside one big disk image.