Log a User Out from Command Line

By  on  

Automation is a system administrator, support agent, and tech savvy person's dream. Automating tasks via scripts remotely helps to get clients out of trouble or even the organization itself. Oftentimes big updates can require users log out. Logging a user out from command line is super easy on Macs!

To log a user out of macOS with a confirmation warning, execute the following from command line:

osascript -e 'tell app "System Events" to log out'

To force log out of macOS without warning, execute the following from command line:

osascript -e 'tell application "loginwindow" to  «event aevtrlgo»'

osascript is a really amazing utility, one that lets you change system volume, send iMessages, and identify app IDs. Readable automation commands? Priceless!

Recent Features

  • By
    6 Things You Didn’t Know About Firefox OS

    Firefox OS is all over the tech news and for good reason:  Mozilla's finally given web developers the platform that they need to create apps the way they've been creating them for years -- with CSS, HTML, and JavaScript.  Firefox OS has been rapidly improving...

  • By
    Being a Dev Dad

    I get asked loads of questions every day but I'm always surprised that they're rarely questions about code or even tech -- many of the questions I get are more about non-dev stuff like what my office is like, what software I use, and oftentimes...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    jQuery Chosen Plugin

    Without a doubt, my least favorite form element is the SELECT element.  The element is almost unstylable, looks different across platforms, has had inconsistent value access, and disaster that is the result of multiple=true is, well, a disaster.  Needless to say, whenever a developer goes...

  • By
    CSS Vertical Center with Flexbox

    I'm 31 years old and feel like I've been in the web development game for centuries.  We knew forever that layouts in CSS were a nightmare and we all considered flexbox our savior.  Whether it turns out that way remains to be seen but flexbox does easily...

Discussion

    Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!