Emergency screen privacy
How can I protect privacy without losing unsaved work?
Short answer
Use window hiding or Windows lock as the first layer, and leave force-close, restart, and shutdown actions disabled. Important documents should still rely on the application's save and recovery features.
Start with reversible actions
Hiding and locking normally leave applications running, so they are safer defaults. Before locking a vault, save files being edited inside it and close applications that are using those files.
Force-closing applications, force-locking or unmounting, restarting, and shutting down can lose unsaved content. Enable them only when you accept that consequence, and first test your workflow with unimportant files.
- Save frequently and enable application autosave
- Close files stored in the vault before locking it
- Leave high-impact actions disabled by default