What it does
Restart lock requires a full Mac restart (or several, if you set the count higher) to disable the block. The daemon tracks boot time and only counts a genuine reboot — sleep/wake doesn't qualify.
Why it works better than it sounds
On paper, restarting a Mac is a quick, low-friction action. In practice, it's enough of a context switch that the impulse to disable usually evaporates between the restart command and the desktop reappearing. You sit down, the Mac is in a fresh state, and you forget what you were going to disable in the first place.
How to configure
- Set Lock Type to Restart.
- Set Restart Count. Default is 1; bumping to 2 or 3 dramatically raises the cost.
- Save and enable. The lock starts counting required restarts from this point.
Persistence across restart
The daemon runs as a LaunchDaemon, so it starts before user login on every boot. It re-asserts the block immediately — there's no window where the block is inactive after a restart. The only effect of the restart is to decrement the required-restart count toward zero.
Common pairings
- Restart + activation schedule — block auto-arms during work hours and requires a restart to bypass; set-and-forget for most users.
- Restart + Schedule lock — full hardening during a specific window.
- Restart with count = 3 — for the user who has learned to restart casually.