Your iPhone can rotate its screen based on how you are holding it. But you can also lock the screen so that this doesn’t happen. Use these steps to turn off the rotation lock on an iPhone 11.
- Swipe down from the top-right of the screen.
- Tap the Portrait Orientation Lock button to turn it off.
Your iPhone 11, like many of the iPhone models before it, has a menu called the Control Center where you can change some settings.
Some of these settings are found in other locations as well, but there is one specific setting that you can only find here.
This setting, called “Portrait Orientation Lock” can stop your iPhone from switching between portrait and landscape mode, based on how the phone is being held.
For example, I find myself enabling Portrait Orientation Lock if I’m using my phone while laying down. The phone has a tendency to keep switching between landscape and portrait orientation in that situation, and I find it far less frustrating to just keep the phone in portrait.
But if your iPhone is locked in portrait and you don’t know how it happened, our guide can show you how to turn off that portrait orientation lock on your iPhone 11.
How to Disable iPhone 11 Rotation Lock
The steps in this article were performed on an iPhone 11 in iOS 13.6.1. On some earlier models of the iPhone you open the Control Center by swiping up from the bottom of the screen instead.
Step 1: Swipe down from the top-right corner of the window.
Step 2: Tap the Portrait Orientation Lock button to turn off the rotation lock.
Note that this only affects apps that can be in both portrait or landscape mode. If you are using an app that is only accessible in portrait or landscape mode then the rotation lock setting won’t affect it.