Add a password to a presentation

If you want to limit who can open and view your Keynote presentation, you can protect it with a password. Anyone who receives the presentation from you needs to know the password in order to open it. If you’re sharing your presentation in iCloud, your collaborators also need the password.

You can also require a password to stop or exit the presentation while it’s playing, which is useful when the presentation is set to play automatically in a kiosk, for example.

Add a password to a presentation

  1. Click the Document tab at the top of the sidebar on the right.

    If you don’t see a sidebar, or the sidebar doesn’t have a Document tab, click Document button in the toolbar.

  2. Select the “Require password to open” checkbox.

  3. Type a password and a hint, then click Set Password.

To change or remove a password, choose File > Change Password (from the File menu at the top of your screen). Enter the requested information, then click Change Password or Remove Password.

Require a password to exit a playing presentation

When you require a password to exit a presentation, the password is applied to all presentations played on your computer, not just to this presentation.

  1. With the presentation open, choose Keynote > Preferences (from the Keynote menu at the top of your screen).

  2. Click Slideshow, then select the “Require password to exit slideshows” checkbox.

  3. Type a password, then click Set Password.

This password applies only while the presentation plays on the Mac it was saved on. If you saved the presentation to a different Mac, you can reapply the password by following the steps above.

To remove this password, choose Keynote > Preferences, then deselect the “Require password to exit slideshows” checkbox.

Note: You can add a password after you share a presentation. If you do, be sure to notify collaborators so that they can open the presentation.

Change or remove a password

  • Change a password: Choose File > Change Password (from the File menu at the top of your screen). Enter the requested information, then click Change Password.

  • Remove a password: Choose File > Change Password. Type the old password, then click Remove Password.

Password-protected presentations stay protected when you share them using iCloud, so your collaborators will need the password to open the presentation. If the presentation is already being shared in iCloud, you can add, remove, or change a password in Share Settings.

Note: A presentation can have only one password, so if you change the password when you share the presentation, that becomes the presentation’s only password.