Change screen orientation on Windows 11

• To change the screen orientation on Windows 11, open Settings > System > Display, and in the “Display orientation” setting, choose to rotate the screen 90 or 180 degrees, or use the flipped option for landscape or portrait mode, then click “Keep changes,” rotate the monitor to the desired orientation.

On Windows 11, the default screen orientation is the landscape (horizontal or 180 degrees) mode since it allows us to better utilize the space from left to right. However, depending on the content, sometimes it makes more sense to change the orientation to portrait (vertical or 90 degrees) mode on the computer.

Usually, you would want to rotate the screen when you want to dedicate an external monitor for an app to view its content vertically, such as when coding or using social media platforms.

Whatever the reason it might be, Windows 11 has a setting to change the display orientation from landscape to portrait.

This guide will teach you the steps to change the screen orientation on Windows 11.

Change screen orientation on Windows 11

To change the screen orientation on Windows 11 the easiest way, use these steps:

1. Open Settings on Windows 11.

2. Click on System.

3. Click the Display tab.

4. Under the “Scale & layout” section, use the “Display orientation” setting to change the orientation to “Landscape” (180 degrees), “Portrait” (90 degrees), “Landscape (flipped),” or “Portrait (flipped).”

   

   Quick note: For more specific clarification, the “Landscape” orientation rotates the screen 180 degrees while “Portrait” rotates the screen 90 degrees. The “flipped” options change the orientation from vertically to horizontally (or horizontally to vertically) but also flip the view.

5. Click the Keep changes button.

6. Turn on the Rotation lock toggle switch (if applicable).

7. (Optional) Rotate the monitor to match the screen orientation.

Once you complete the steps, you can start using the computer in the desired orientation. If the option is grayed out, the device doesn’t support the feature, or there’s a problem with the video driver.

These instructions are meant for desktops with external monitors. If you have a tablet, rotating the device should change its orientation automatically. If this isn’t the case, you may have turned on the option to lock rotation. You can disable “Rotation lock” from the “Quick Settings” flyout using the “Windows key + A” keyboard shortcut or from the “Display” settings page.