For those of you enjoying my ‘how to disable’ series, here’s another handy tip.
The built-in Parental Controls in OS X has a very useful option called ‘Use Simple Finder’ as shown below:
Like most user interface features, there is a preference somewhere that toggles this feature on and off. Therefore instead of configuring Parental Controls, you can just simply enable the ‘Simple Finder’.
To enable ‘Simple Finder mode’, all you need to do is log in as an admin user and enter one line of command in the Terminal application (located in /Applications/Utilities/) as shown below:
defaults write com.apple.finder InterfaceLevel simple;killall Finder
You will now notice that the Finder has restricted your access with less pull down menu options and a restricted Dock:
To temporarily gain full access to the Finder whilst logged in, click the ‘Finder’ menu and select ‘Run Full Finder’, then type in your admin password to start the Finder in normal mode.
If you do want to revert completely back to the default setting, just enter the following command:
defaults write com.apple.finder InterfaceLevel standard;killall Finder
Disclaimer:
While the author has taken care to provide our readers with accurate information, please use your discretion before acting upon information based on the blog post. Amsys will not compensate you in any way whatsoever if you ever happen to suffer a loss/inconvenience/damage because of/while making use of information in this blog.
This feature has been tested using OS X v10.8.4 which was the latest Mac OS release at the time of writing.