Fix Android Screen won’t Rotate – Sometimes your Android phone’s screen doesn’t rotate when you turn the phone sideways. It must be frustrating when you are trying to watch some video or movie on your phone and the screen remains in portrait mode and sometimes it doesn’t go back to portrait when we want to use it that way.
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Reasons for Android Auto Rotate Not Working
Following are some issues that can stop your screen from rotating automatically when you turn your phone horizontally or vertically:
- The G-sensor or accelerometer sensor of your phone is not working properly.
- Some recent app is causing a problem in auto-rotating or the screen is touched while rotating.
- Lastly, your smartphone needs an update.
Fix Android Screen Auto Rotate Not Working
Follow these steps and you should be able to resolve the autorotate not working issue.
Restart your Android phone
Most of the time a simple restart can fix all the issues your phone is facing. When you reboot or restart the phone, it kills system memory which resolves many problems and issues like the screen not rotating, as it could also resolve a frozen screen.
Check Auto Rotate Settings
Before diving deep into other solutions, you should double-check the auto-rotate setting on your phone. You can find it in the Quick Settings panel. Make sure that the Auto-Rotate is enabled.
Alternatively, you can also navigate Settings > Display > Advanced and check if the ‘Auto-rotate screen’ option is enabled. Aside from that, if you’re on Android 9 or above, holding your phone sideways will present you with an auto-rotate icon in the bottom left corner of the screen. Tapping on it will rotate your screen without enabling the auto-rotate setting.
Allow Home Screen Rotation
In Android, screen rotation doesn’t work for specific screens like the Home screen, Lock screen, and Call screen by default. So if one of these screens doesn’t rotate, don’t sweat. It’s because you haven’t enabled it.
To enable home screen rotation, tap and hold in the blank area in the home screen and select Home settings. Then, toggle on the ‘Allow Home screen rotation option. Similarly, you can enable lock screen and call screen rotation on your phone. While most phones can rotate the home screen, not every phone allows a rotating lock screen and call screen.
Calibrate Sensors
If the above methods didn’t fix the screen rotation issue, then it’s time to dig a little deep and check the accelerometer and G-sensor on your phone. If the issue is related to one of these sensors, you can try recalibrating them to solve it.
To do that, you can use a dedicated third-party app like Physics Toolbox Sensor Suite to test and calibrate sensors on your device. Then, after recalibrating your phone’s sensors, try to see if the auto rotation is working fine.
Check For Faulty Apps in Safe Mode
Safe Mode on Android is a great tool for troubleshooting and finding out what’s causing your phone to misbehave on your own. Sometimes, recently installed apps can cause your phone to misbehave. To make sure of it, try booting your phone into Safe Mode first.
To enter Safe Mode, press and hold the power button on your phone. Now tap and hold on to the Power Off option. When prompted, tap on OK to confirm. In the Safe mode, check and see if the screen rotation is working fine. If it is, then it’s one of the recently installed apps on your phone causing the issue. Uninstall them one by one and see if it fixes the issue.
Also Read: How to Fix Android File Transfer Not Working
Allow Home Screen Rotation
Some screens like the Home screen, Lock screen, and Call screen won’t rotate by default, and auto-rotate also won’t rotate them. You will have to enable this by going to each screen’s settings like in the above image, these are Home screen settings. And there you can enable the rotation toggle switch.
Check Rotate Settings in the App
Sometimes other individual apps cause issues while rotating and that app’s settings could be conflicting with your phone’s setting. You will need to check to rotate settings in the respective app you’re using such as you can set videos for rotating in Google Photos.
Also Read: How to Disable Native Apps On Android
