If your Mac has multiple users, you've no doubt been at a frustrating moment when you've need to log out in order to let another user log onto your computer. Usually this happens when you're running a ton of applications and the last thing you want to do is interupt your process and have to save all of your work. There is a better way, however, that will let you switch users without completely logging out of your account.

Fast User Switching has been a part of Mac OS X since version 10.3 (Panther), but it's a little known feature because it's so well hidden in the System Preferences and not usually enabled by default.

To enable Fast User Switching, navigate to System Preferences > Accounts, and click on the Login Options button in the left-hand list. Once there, check the box labeled "Show Fast User Switching Menu As".

This will place a menu item in the menu bar on your Mac, beside the Spotlight icon. In the drop-down menu, beside the box we just checked to enable this, you can select three different views: Name, Short name, and Icon. If you have a lot of items in your menu bar, you may want to select the icon option to preserve space. When you're finished configuring the options, you can quit System Preferences.

To switch users using this method, simply click on your name (or the user icon) in the menu bar and select the account you would like to log in as. If that particular user account doesn't have a password, you will not be asked to enter one; however, if the user account has a password, you will be prompted for that. Accounts that are already logged in will have orange check marks to the left of their names.

To signify the account switch, Mac OS X will do a cool cube-rotation effect on the screen while loading to the other account. From any user account, you can log into any subsequent user account on your Mac from the Fast User Switching menu bar item.

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