When device is rotated / Auto rotate

This setting controls whether the screen will automatically rotate between portrait (vertical) and landscape (horizontal) layouts depends in which way up the device is held.

The automatic rotation of the display may be turned on or off. On some devices the on and off options will have the names:

  • Rotate the contents of the screen
  • Stay in portrait view

If this is turned off or placed into Stay in portrait view mode, the screen will be fixed in portrait (vertical) view regardless of how the device is held.

Note: while portrait view is the default on phones and some tablets, some tablets will use landscape (horizontal) view as the default and so the options shown here will be different.

Overriding by apps

An important thing to note is that the auto-rotation feature is dependent on support in each individual app: some apps will support it, while other apps will override it, being fixed in a portrait or landscape mode and will not rotate. Notably, on most smartphones the home screens often do not support auto-rotation, and will only work in the portrait (vertical) mode.

Some activities such as viewing video will also override the auto-detected rotation, displaying video in landscape mode.

Apps included with the device such as email and Internet usually do support auto-rotation.