Tips & Tricks

Rotate Your Computer Screen

04/17/2011
6 Comments
Written by Kevin

You can rotate your primary computer screen in Windows and Mac, this includes the built in screens on a MacBook Pro or iMac.

You can rotate your primary computer screen in Windows and Mac, this includes the built in screens on a MacBook Pro or iMac.

Many people choose to do this with their secondary monitor if they wish to mount the monitor vertically to save space. You can see an example of this in the images at the bottom of this post.

This is how to access the screen rotation option in Mac OS X:

  • Launch System Preferences (It’s in your Applications folder or you can click on the Apple logo in the top left hand corner and select it)
  • Hold down the Command+Option keys and click on the “Display” icon
  • On the right side of the Display preferences, look for the newly visible ‘Rotation’ drop down menu
  • Set the rotation to what you prefer and close ‘Display’ preferences to have the settings become permanent
  • If you flip the screen vertically, you’ll notice that the mouse is flipped as well, navigation gets pretty challenging at this point, which actually makes this a good April Fools prank to play on someone. Obviously, the real reason to rotate the screen is to accommodate for different display setups, although rotating the primary display is not very common, this is likely why Apple has decided to hide the setting by default.

Windows 7:

  • Right click on your desktop
  • Select ‘Screen Resolution’
  • You will now see a drop down box with the label of ‘Orientation’ this is where you can select your type of rotation
  • Click ‘OK’ and the changes will be made!

Examples of when to use screen rotation:

Using a Macbook as an extended display!

Second monitor turned vertically

About the author

Kevin

Kevin is the Founder and Senior Editor of Tech Heavy. When he isn't writing about the latest tech tools he spends his days working in an IT department in Dubuque, IA. @kevincray

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6 Comments

  • Whoa, that’s really awesome! I used to know this guy at work in the design/IT department who had the rotated screen… but he never told me how to do it. Thanks for sharing this – it’s definitely a lifesaver especially for those in web design.

  • hi there

    I’m wondering how you get the correct orientation for the mouse on the vertical monitor? Seems even the internet doesn’t know. Is it correct for both screens simultaneously?

    cheers,

    Julian

  • Believe it or not, my 1 year old did this today when he was left alone with the computer for a little while. It took a while for us to figure out how to undo this, the mouse was backwards as well so that made it extremely difficult. I found myself just cracking up trying to figure out how he did it.

  • Hello! A quick question- is there such as third party software that enable the feature of flipping the display? So the one can watch the iMac display through the mirror reflection? Let me know!