# Listing Photos Uploading Sideways? Fix the Rotation in Two Minutes > Why do listing photos appear sideways after being uploaded? A simple test to prove it. Learn how to fix image rotation in less than two minutes. - Source: https://www.primelister.com/blog/listing-photos-uploading-sideways-fix-the-rotation-in-two-minutes - Author: Carmen Jones, Customer Support, PrimeLister - Published: 2026-10-27 - Reading time: 6 min --- Photos are saved with a camera's sensor orientation, and rotation is added with a tag instead of turning the pixels. This tag gets saved with the photo. Gallery apps read this tag, and as such, the photo is displayed correctly. Other apps like message apps don't always read this tag and as a result, photos save and display with the wrong orientation. A workaround to solve this issue is to rotate a full 360 degrees, save the change, then upload. You can also export a new, correct copy. ## Upright on the phone, sideways in the listing Take a photo of something and list it. You take a photo of jeans lying flat. You take a photo of a jacket hanging up. When reviewing the photos in your phone's gallery, they all look correct. You start a listing, add photos to it, and suddenly, the photo of the jeans looks like it is sideways. What about the photo of the jacket? Sometimes you need to click into the listing to see the photo is sideways. A few details help you confirm you are in the right place. The photo isn’t cropped wrong, blurry or stretched. It can be turned. It tends to happen to photos shot sideways, or upside down to take a low angle photo. It happens more with some photos in a batch, and it can be confusing. It is more likely to happen when you upload from a browser after you’ve transferred the photos from your phone using AirDrop, a cable, email or a cloud folder, because the file goes through a lot of software that may not recognize the rotation tag. Are your photos small, grainy and being cut off? That’s a different issue that’s not addressed in this guide. ## Run the 30-second one-photo test While you didn’t change how you take photos, prove the cause with a single example. Choose a sideways photo, and do this: 1. Open the photo in your phone’s built-in photo editor and rotate it four times. It should go back to the way it was. 2. Most photo editors will physically rewrite the pixels to represent what you see on the screen, and from what I have seen, they usually do a pretty good job. 3. Save the photo after each rotation, and move on to the next step if your editor will not allow a save without a change. 4. Delete the sideways picture from your draft listing. Upload the re-saved photo, check the preview, and then check your listing if you are able to. 5. If the picture is fixed, great! You have solved your problem. The original photo was sideways because the camera’s sensor was sideways and your phone or camera ignored the rotation tag. When the picture is saved, it “bakes” the rotation into the picture, and that’s what gets uploaded. You can apply the same fix to the rest of the pictures in the batch. If it’s still sideways, this means the picture has been physically turned, and this can be due to a couple of different reasons. Picture was taken using a phone or camera that is locked to portrait orientation. Some photo editing programs or mobile apps can also physically rotate a picture, for example to add text to the picture, along the X-axis. Check the fixes for those causes below. ## Why the rotation gets lost The basic causes of a sideways photo can be summed up like this: - 1. The rotation is ignored. 2. The phone or camera sensor records the picture the way it is physically aligned, and gives a small note of how it is aligned along with the picture file. 3. Most apps and galleries honor this note. 4. Some web uploaders or desktop apps, or file converters along the way like from HEIC to JPG, can ignore or drop this note, and the raw pixels are shown. - Many photo editing apps do not rotate or crop the original photo. The app generates edits on top of the original, and the phone displays the edited copy. However, some routes send the original copy instead. - A wrongly oriented photo. When you turn your phone sideways and take a screenshot, it captures an portrait-framed image with landscape content. In this case, the content really is sideways. The first two are not visible on the phone and, therefore, are not shown in the picture. The third is visible, but easy to miss when going quickly through the items. The perspective in the picture is accurate, though, so there is no need to worry about that. ## How to fix each cause For an ignored rotation tag, the fix is to match the pixels to the view. The four-rotation resave from the quick check works photo by photo. To do it to a whole batch, use the phone's export or share feature, which makes a new copy of the photo. On a computer you can rotate the batch using a photo viewer and it writes a new file. Some sellers have adapted the habit of taking a screen shot of each picture to rotate it, but this is low quality and decreases picture clarity, so the export option is the better habit. For edited copies, you need a flattened version, not the original plus instructions. Work through it like this: 1. Open the edited photo and use Export, Save as copy or Duplicate, depending on your app. 2. Choose the most compatible format, usually JPG, if the app offers a choice. 3. Upload the new copy, not the original in your library. 4. Delete or archive the original once the listing looks right, so you do not grab it again next time. To rotate a screenshot, open your editor, and rotate it so that the item is upright. Take a screenshot of that, and upload the new screenshot. In the future, turn rotation lock off before taking screenshots of anything you might use. Or, if you have the original picture, use that instead. To minimize recurrence, try shooting in portrait mode and if you need to hold your phone sideways for a long time, try re-saving that batch before you list. Editing your photos will always save you time than having to edit the listings later on. ## Fix photos once, then list everywhere with PrimeLister Once your pictures are the right way up, the long and tedious part of getting your items ready to sell is listing the same item on multiple channels and making sure you’re using the correct picture on each listing. PrimeLister doesn’t do anything to your pictures. You have to do that part yourself. But after that is done you don’t have to worry about doing the same thing for each individual listing site. This means you’ll be spending way less time on the upload screens and more potential buyers will see your item. - Crosslisting to Poshmark, eBay, Mercari, Depop, Etsy and Facebook Marketplace from one listing. - Inventory auto-sync and auto-delisting once an item sells, so nothing sells twice. - Mass edit actions to change a batch of listings after adjusting photos. - Use this free tool to check for duplicates and locate the stray listing left behind after you relist with corrected photos. If you also sell on Poshmark, you can try the Poshmark Bot with a 7-day free trial (no credit card required). ## Frequently asked questions Can I fix a live photo? Yes, by removing the sideways photo in the listing and uploading the correct photo. Previews may not always show the fixed photo page, so check on another device. Why does turning off HEIC on my phone help? It may help because removing one conversion step may keep the rotation tag. It won’t edit photos taken previously, so you’ll still need to re-save those. Why are only some photos in a batch sideways? You probably switched up how you held the phone partway through, or edited some and not others. Photos uploaded previously or saved with the correct orientation will be upright.