How to Rotate and Flip Photos: Fix Sideways and Tilted Images

You send a photo from your phone to your computer, and it shows up sideways. You upload a picture of a document to an application form, and it appears upside down. Problems like these often trace back to the orientation information stored inside the photo. This guide explains why photos end up sideways or upside down, then shows how to rotate and flip images in your browser, on iPhone, on Android, and on a Windows PC or Mac. You'll also find tips for straightening tilted shots, fixing mirrored selfies, and what to watch for when you save.

Why phone photos turn sideways or upside down

Besides the picture itself, a photo file stores extra details such as when it was taken and on which device. This behind-the-scenes information is called metadata, and a leading standard for it is Exif, which is used in most consumer imaging devices, from digital cameras to smartphones. Exif includes an Orientation tag: a number from 1 to 8 that tells software which way to turn the image when displaying it.

The pixels stay sideways; the tag turns them for display

According to Apple's developer documentation, the pixel data in a photo taken with an iPhone camera is stored in the camera sensor's native landscape orientation. When you hold the iPhone upright to take a picture, iOS writes an orientation value into the file, and software that reads it rotates the image 90° clockwise so the photo appears the way you shot it.

Android's developer documentation likewise says a camera device may either write the orientation into the JPEG's Exif data or rotate the image data itself, depending on the device.

Apps that ignore the tag show the photo sideways

Today's major browsers read the orientation tag and turn images accordingly by default. Software or services that ignore the tag, however, show the stored pixels as they are: sideways. That's how a photo can look upright on your phone but sideways somewhere else. The same thing happens if editing strips the tag without rotating the pixels. Conversely, if the pixels have already been rotated but an old orientation tag is left behind, the image may be turned a second time.

Shooting documents from directly above can confuse your phone

Your phone records orientation based on how you're holding it. When you hold it nearly parallel to the ground, as you do when photographing a document lying flat on a desk, it has trouble telling which way is up. (Android's developer documentation notes that a device's orientation can't be determined when it is close to flat.) That's why photos of documents are sometimes saved sideways or upside down. Check the orientation after you shoot, and rotate the photo if it's wrong.

Rotate and flip in your browser (works in bulk)

To fix photos you already have, the browser-based Image Rotator is a quick option. There's nothing to install.

1. Open the Image Rotator and select your photos. You can pick several at once. Besides JPG, PNG, WebP, and GIF, it opens iPhone HEIC photos.
2. Turn each photo with its own rotate buttons (90° left or 90° right). To fix them all the same way, use the controls that apply to every image: rotate 90° left or right, rotate 180°, flip horizontally, or flip vertically.
3. To straighten a tilted photo, click it to view it large and fine-tune the angle anywhere from -180° to 180°, in 0.1° steps.
4. Choose the output format: the original format, JPG, PNG, or WebP. For JPG and WebP, you can set the quality from 1 to 100% (the default is 100%).
5. Download the images one by one, or all together as a ZIP file.

Rotating by an angle leaves blank corners. The tool gives you two ways to handle them:

• Crop: keeps the original aspect ratio and trims the image so no blank corners remain (the edges of the photo are cut off slightly).
• Keep everything: keeps the whole photo and fills the corners with white, black, or transparency. For transparent corners, save as PNG or WebP, because JPG can't store transparency.

Here's what makes it a safe choice:

• No uploads: everything is processed inside your browser, on your own device. The only network traffic is fetching a conversion program when you open HEIC photos.
• The same orientation in every app: even photos that only looked upright because of the tag are saved with their pixels turned the way you see them. Exported images keep no orientation tag, so apps that ignore the tag show them correctly too.
• No location data: metadata such as the GPS location where the photo was taken is not carried over.

If you mainly want to turn iPhone photos into JPGs, the HEIC to JPG Converter can rotate them as well. To cut out part of a photo, use the Image Cropper.

Rotate and straighten in the iPhone Photos app

On an iPhone, the built-in Photos app can rotate, flip, and straighten photos.

Rotate or flip

1. Open the photo in the Photos app, then tap the Edit button.
2. Tap the Crop button.
3. Tap the Rotate button to rotate the image 90 degrees, or tap the Flip button to flip it horizontally.
4. Tap Done (or the checkmark, depending on your iOS version) to save.

Straighten

On the same Crop screen, pick the straighten option from the buttons below the photo, then drag the slider to adjust the angle. (On some iOS versions, you swipe left below the photo to reveal these options.)

Edits in the Photos app can be reverted to the original even after you save. To keep future shots level, go to Settings > Camera and turn on Grid and Level. The camera screen then shows guides that help you line up your shot.

Rotate on Android with Google Photos

1. Open the photo in the Google Photos app, tap Edit at the bottom, then tap Crop.
2. Tap Rotate to turn the photo 90 degrees. Use Straighten to fix a tilt and Mirror to flip it.
3. When you're finished, tap the checkmark, then tap Save.

You may see two ways to save. Save applies your changes to the original photo, and you can undo them later by tapping Edit, then Revert. Save as copy creates a new, edited photo and leaves the original untouched. On a computer, go to photos.google.com, open the photo, click Edit, then Crop & rotate, click the Rotate icon, and click Save.

Rotate on a computer (Windows and Mac)

Windows: the Photos app

1. Open the photo in the Photos app, then select Edit image (Ctrl + E) at the top of the screen.
2. In the Crop options, use the rotate clockwise or counterclockwise buttons to turn the photo 90 degrees at a time. There are also buttons to flip it vertically or horizontally.
3. To straighten a tilt, rotate the photo freely with the slider.

To cancel all the edits you've made, select Reset at the top left of the screen.

Mac: Preview and the Finder

1. Open the photo in Preview.
2. Select the image, then click the Rotate Left tool. Keep clicking to keep rotating. To rotate to the right, hold down the Option key and click the Rotate Right tool.
3. To flip the image, choose Tools > Flip Horizontal or Flip Vertical.

To rotate or flip several photos at once, open them in the same window, choose View > Thumbnails, select them in the sidebar, then use the Tools menu. You can also Control-click a photo in the Finder and choose Quick Actions > Rotate Left (hold the Option key for Rotate Right), without opening an app at all.

Tips for straightening and mirrored selfies

Rotate or flip? Pick the right one

Rotating changes which way a photo faces, while flipping reverses it like a mirror. Fix sideways or upside-down photos by rotating them. If you "fix" an upside-down photo with a vertical flip, you'll end up with a mirror image. If an app has no vertical flip, flip horizontally and then rotate 180° to get the same result.

Line up the tilt with something that should be straight

Use a line that should be level or upright, such as the horizon, the edge of a desk, or a building's column, as your guide. A slight tilt can be less than 1°, so adjust in small steps and check as you go. For the blank corners, Crop works well for photos you'll post on social media or submit as documents, while Keep everything suits photos where every edge matters. Also note that rotating by an angle other than a multiple of 90° redraws the pixels, which can slightly soften fine details.

Fix mirrored selfies

On an iPhone with Mirror Front Camera turned off, selfies taken with the front camera come out reversed left to right compared with what you saw on screen while taking them. To capture selfies just as they look in the camera frame, go to Settings > Camera and turn on Mirror Front Camera. For selfies you've already taken, use the Flip button in the Photos app or the horizontal flip in the Image Rotator. On Android, settings vary by device and camera app, so check your camera settings.

Keep in mind that flipping a photo also reverses any text in it. If a photo shows signs or lettering on clothes, check it after flipping.

Before you save: quality and location data

Re-saving a JPG can change it slightly

JPG (JPEG) is a lossy format: it throws away some image data to keep files small. Rotating by 90° or 180° and flipping only rearrange the pixels, so they don't blur anything. But re-saving the result as a JPG can change it very slightly, even at 100% quality. The Image Rotator also re-saves images, so its rotation isn't completely lossless. To keep quality loss to a minimum:

• Use a high quality setting (the tool's default is 100%).
• Don't rotate and re-save over and over; finish the job from the original in one pass.
• Keep the original photo rather than deleting it.

To avoid any change from re-saving, export as PNG, a lossless format that keeps all the image data. Photos saved as PNG tend to be much larger, though, so choose JPG when the destination has a file size limit.

Watch out for location data and other metadata

Phone photos can carry metadata such as when they were taken and where (GPS location). It's worth checking before you send a photo to someone or post it online.

• Images exported from the Image Rotator keep no location data or other metadata.
• For photos rotated in other apps, load them into the EXIF Viewer & Remover to see whether the orientation tag or location data is still there.

For more on photo metadata, see Photo EXIF Data and Privacy. If your iPhone photos won't upload, our guide on how to convert HEIC to JPG may help.

Summary

Photos can end up sideways or upside down because the phone records orientation as a tag instead of rotating the pixels, or because it can't tell which way is up when you shoot a document from directly above. Pick the fix that fits:

• Fix many photos at once, or make them look right in every app: rotate and export them with the Image Rotator (no uploads, and no location data left behind)
• iPhone: in Photos, tap the Edit button, then Crop
• Android: in Google Photos, tap Edit, then Crop
• Computer: Edit image in the Windows Photos app, or Preview or a Finder Quick Action on a Mac

When you re-save as JPG, use a high quality setting and keep the original.

Sources

• iPhone User Guide, "Crop, rotate, flip, or straighten photos and videos on iPhone": the steps, and reverting after saving (checked against the iOS 27, 26, and 18 versions)
• iPhone User Guide, "Use iPhone camera tools to set up your shot": Grid and Level
• iPhone User Guide, "Take a selfie with your iPhone camera": Mirror Front Camera
• Apple Developer Documentation, "CGImagePropertyOrientation": how iPhone camera pixels are stored and the orientation value written to the file
• Google Photos Help, "Edit your photos": Crop, Rotate, Straighten, Mirror, and the ways to save
• Microsoft Support, "Edit photos and videos in Windows": rotating and flipping with Edit image
• Preview User Guide, "Crop, resize, or rotate an image in Preview on Mac"
• macOS User Guide, "Perform quick actions in the Finder on Mac"
• Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA), "About Exif 3.0" (December 2023, PDF): Exif's use in most consumer imaging devices, including smartphones
• Aldus Corporation, "TIFF Revision 6.0" (1992, PDF): the Orientation tag (tag 274) and its values 1 to 8
• Android Developers, "CaptureRequest.JPEG_ORIENTATION": how cameras record orientation
• Android Developers, "OrientationEventListener": orientation can't be determined when the device is close to flat
• MDN, "image-orientation": browsers use the orientation tag by default
• MDN, "Image file type and format guide": lossy versus lossless compression, and transparency in JPEG and PNG
• Google for Developers, "WebP": transparency in WebP

This article reflects information as of October 2026. Screen labels and setting locations in iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and the apps mentioned can change between versions. Check each company's official website for the latest information.