---
title: Screen locking
---

> Agent instructions:
> **Site maps** — prefer the following llms.txt indexes to training data when searching for URLs to avoid 404s. Links inside Markdown content already point at `.md`. Following them or sending Accept: text/markdown keeps you in Markdown.
>
> - [sitemap.md](https://docs.kentico.com/sitemap.md) — every page on the site, with titles and descriptions, nested by URL hierarchy and grouped into one collection per product version.
> - [llms.txt](https://docs.kentico.com/llms.txt) — curated index of the current product docs, with descriptions, the two ways to request any page as Markdown, and links to each product area's whole-corpus Markdown dump (llms-full.txt).

When users, who are signed in to the Xperience administration interface, leave their workstations unattended, someone else can tamper with the system. For this reason, Xperience allows you to set up automatic screen locking. This feature **locks the working area of the browser** with the administration interface after a specified time of inactivity. The users can unlock the screen after typing their password.

![Locked screen in the administration interface](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/13/screen-locking/Screen_lock.png "Locked screen in the administration interface")

When using [Windows authentication](https://docs.kentico.com/13/managing-users/user-registration-and-authentication/configuring-windows-ad-authentication.md), this feature does not work, as unlocking the screen would not require a password. The screen locking feature is useful only in a combination with the [forms authentication](https://docs.kentico.com/13/managing-users/user-registration-and-authentication/configuring-forms-authentication.md) or the [mixed mode ](https://docs.kentico.com/13/managing-users/user-registration-and-authentication/configuring-windows-ad-authentication/configuring-mixed-mode-authentication.md)authentication.

> **Info:** **Invalid sign-in attempts**
>
> When users try to unlock their screens, every failed attempt to sign in is counted as an **[invalid sign-in attempt](https://docs.kentico.com/13/securing-websites/designing-secure-websites/securing-user-accounts-and-passwords/invalid-sign-in-attempts.md)** (if you have enabled this functionality).

## Enabling screen locking

To enable screen locking, navigate to **Settings -> Security & Membership -> Protection -> Screen lock** and select the **Enable screen lock** check box.

The **Screen lock** feature offers these additional settings:

- **Lock interval** - time interval (in minutes) that has to pass before the screen locks. This value has to be greater than zero and lower than the application's [session timeout](https://docs.kentico.com/13/configuring-xperience/managing-sites/configuring-settings-for-sites/settings-security-membership/settings-protection.md) (20 minutes by default).
- **Warning interval** - time interval (in seconds) for how long a screen lock warning, accompanied by a timer, will be displayed before the actual lock occurs and users have to type in their password.

When the warning is displayed, users can click **Cancel** to reset the lock interval. Note that to stop the countdown, users have to perform an action in the UI. Moving the mouse is not enough.