Electrum 4.6+ "Wallet unlocking"

[NotATether]

I am about to update my Electrum installation from 4.5.8 to the latest 4.7.2 version, and while reading the release notes, it has come to my attention that a feature has been introduced in 4.6 that would allow the user to perform sensitive operations such as spending funds or viewing private keys/seeds without a password.

   - Wallet unlocking:
     - Wallets can be unlocked in the Qt GUI. When a password-protected
       wallet is unlocked, its password is kept in memory, and signing
       transactions will not require to enter the password. The unlocked
       state is rendered by the 'open lock' icon in the status bar.
     - If a wallet needs to sweep anchor channel outputs using extra
       UTXOs, the operations will be performed without requiring the
       user password if the wallet is unlocked. If the wallet is locked,
       the status bar will show a 'password required' button.

I never want these operations to be performed without a password. So I would like to know if the 'open lock' thing is locked by default when you open Electrum and type the wallet password, or is there an option in settings to force this behavior?

[Charles-Tim]

It is not different from how Electrum has been before, the unlock is when password is not used to protect your wallet just as it was before, but you can now disable the password on the GUI if you click on the locked padlock, and also enable password if you click on the unlock padlock. The padlock which can now be seen at the lower right corner beside the preference and the green, blue or red network icon. If your wallet is having password, the password will be required to check your private key, seed phrase and also required to make transactions and to also required if you want to use bump or cancel a transaction.

[nc50lc]

It is not different from how Electrum has been before, the unlock is when password is not used to protect your wallet just as it was before, but you can now disable the password on the GUI if you click on the locked padlock, and also enable password if you click on the unlock padlock. The padlock which can now be seen at the lower right corner beside the preference and the green, blue or red network icon.

That release note is about the new feature in "Wallet->Lock/Unlock" menu, not the password indicator icon below.
That padlock icon is just a shortcut for "Wallet->Password" menu which actually changes the wallet's password or decrypt/encrypt it.

-snip- it has come to my attention that a feature has been introduced in 4.6 that would allow the user to perform sensitive operations such as spending funds or viewing private keys/seeds without a password.

It's not mandatory to use.
It's just a convenience (and safety) feature for those who needs to do a lot of operations in the wallet that would've required them to type the password multiple times.
With it, they only need to type it once to unlock the wallet, then afterwards, manually lock it using the same menu or close the wallet which will automatically lock it.

You don't have to use it if you want to stick to the usual workflow of typing the password only when it's needed.