The account lock enforces the rules you set when you were calm. When a limit is reached, the account locks, whether you are watching or not: what is open on it is closed, where the broker lets Tradeus close — a position you opened by hand in the broker's platform included — and on Tradovate its working orders are cancelled too; new entries from your alerts and from the copier are not sent; and, if you switch it on, a trade you open by hand during the lock is closed again. The close step by step is on When a lock fires.
It is per account, and each account's limits are independent. An evaluation with a hard drawdown rule and a funded account you trade loosely do not have to share a policy.
A limit is caught after it is crossed
A watchdog reads each armed account about every five seconds (every ten on Tradovate, which allows each login only so many requests an hour) — sooner on brokers that push position changes, and right after each order Tradeus places from an alert — and locks the account the moment its day P&L, realized plus open, reaches your number. Exactly that number: Tradeus adds no margin of its own. So the order that crosses a limit has already gone through by then, and a fast market can carry the account past the figure before the close fills. Leave that room yourself — for a firm rule of 500, a limit of 475. Once the account is locked, Tradeus sends it no new entries from your alerts, the copier, or an order waiting for your confirmation on a manual subscription — Submit is refused and the order stays parked, so you can discard it or send it after the lock ends. Exits still go through.
You cannot unlock it early
That is the entire point. A lock you can lift the moment it hurts is a suggestion, not a limit. Choose the duration accordingly before you arm it.
The kill switch is a different control
The lock acts on one account and cannot be lifted early. The kill switch acts on everything you own at once, and you can release it whenever you choose. One press pauses every strategy endpoint and every copy group, holds any new entry, discards the orders waiting for your confirmation, and closes every open position on every account where the broker allows it. Its button is at the top of the Account lock page. What it cannot close, and how releasing it works, is on The kill switch.