Signing in, signing out and Lockdown mode

You signed in to Rally with your Google account back in Chapter 1. Since then Rally has kept you signed in, so you do not see the Google screen every morning. This page explains how long that lasts, how to end it, and how to make the saved sign-in on your Mac harder to misuse.

How long you stay signed in#

Rally saves a sign-in on your Mac and renews it quietly while you use the app.

• Each renewal gives it another 30 days. If you do not open Rally for 30 days, the sign-in lapses.
• However often you use Rally, a sign-in never lasts more than 90 days from the moment you signed in with Google.

When either limit is reached, Rally asks you to sign in with Google again. Your Channels, settings and connections are still there afterwards. Only the sign-in was renewed.

These limits exist so that a sign-in left on an old laptop, or copied from one, does not stay useful forever.

Signing out#

Sign out when you are handing the Mac to someone else, selling it, or want to sign in with a different Google account.

There are two ways:

• Click your avatar and name at the bottom of the sidebar to open the account menu (the one from the tour of the window), then choose Log out. (Some older layouts call it Sign out.)
• Open Settings → Account, find Session, and click Sign out beside Sign out of Rally.

Signing out deletes the saved sign-in, and any unsent drafts, from this Mac. It closes the Settings and Sidekicks windows if they are open. It also tells Rally's servers to end that sign-in, so it cannot be used again even if a copy of it exists somewhere.

Signing out only affects this Mac. If you also use Rally on your iPhone, you stay signed in there until you sign out on the phone too: in the iPhone app's Settings, tap Sign out.

Signing out is not leaving#

People mix these two up, and they do different things.

Leaving is covered in Leaving, removing and closing.

Signed in with the wrong Google account#

If you notice during the first-run screens that you signed in with the wrong Google account (a personal one instead of your work one, say), look for the Sign out link on those screens. It takes you back to the start so you can sign in with the right account.

Lockdown mode#

Rally encrypts the sign-in it saves on your Mac. By default it uses an encryption key that is built into the Rally app and is the same for every copy of Rally. That keeps your sign-in working through updates and changes to your Mac, but it means the saved sign-in is not tied to this particular computer.

Lockdown mode changes that. With it on, Rally protects the saved sign-in with your Mac's keychain: the secure store macOS uses for passwords, which belongs to your Mac and your user account on it. If someone copied Rally's files from your Mac to another computer, the sign-in would not come with them.

Turn it on if you share a Mac, travel with it, or work somewhere that asks for extra care with saved credentials.

Turning it on or off#

1. Open Settings → Application.
2. Under Security, turn on Lockdown mode.

Rally re-encrypts your saved sign-in straight away. While it does, the other switches on the Application page wait for it to finish, so a short pause there is normal. You stay signed in. Turning Lockdown mode off again works the same way in reverse.

Lockdown mode is a setting for this Mac only. The iPhone app already keeps its sign-in in the iPhone's own Keychain.

When the keychain is not available#

Lockdown mode depends on macOS letting Rally use the keychain. If that ever stops working:

• If Lockdown mode is off, the switch is greyed out and reads Lockdown mode is off because this Mac's keystore is unavailable.
• If Lockdown mode was on, Rally cannot read the protected sign-in. It turns Lockdown mode off and asks you to sign in with Google again. If this happens while Rally is already open, the page reads This Mac's keystore is unavailable. Turn off Lockdown mode to keep using the loaded session. Turn the switch off and you can carry on.