How to enable automatic user logins on Mac OS X Yosemite

Screen Shot 2014-08-23 at 17.49.01By default Yosemite doesn’t like users to auto-login when the system starts. Instead you have to select a user, type in the password, and then the system starts to boot. Not necessarily what we want.

To disable this feature you usually head over to

  • System Preferences
  • Users and Groups
  • Login Options

and pick your default user from that handy drop down menu. Notice however that this is greyed out on Yosemite:

Screen Shot 2014-08-23 at 17.47.59

So what gives?

Turns out that this option is not available if you’ve agreed to encrypt your disk via FileVault. And it makes sense too: otherwise your hard disk data could be accessed upon boot without a password, rendering this feature useless.

Hence, to bring back automatic logins, turn off FileVault under

  • System Preferences
  • Security and Privacy
  • FileVault

Screen Shot 2014-08-23 at 17.56.24

According to this system, I can do that in about 32 days…

Notice that if you use your iCloud password as the login password, auto-logins are also disabled. In which case, change your login password to a “separate password”, switch off FileVault and voila – auto logins are back at your disposal.

Screen Shot 2014-08-23 at 18.02.06

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