ExpressBasics: How to force landscape mode on any Android tablet, phone

Here's how you can force all apps on an Android phone or tablet to forcibly open in landscape mode with a simple app.

expressbasics, force landscape mode, force landscape orientation,

Here's how you can force landscape orientation on Android devices easily. (Express Photo).

3 min readMumbaiJul 30, 2022 02:04 PM IST First published on: Jul 30, 2022 at 02:04 PM IST

Thanks to Android tablets making a return in the market, especially in the budget segment, I have been using a lot of them lately. Unlike phones, I like using my Android tablets primarily in landscape mode, just like a lot of other people. This isn’t as easy as you think, however, thanks to apps fluctuating between landscape and portrait all the time.

Even after switching to landscape and turning Android’s default auto-rotate toggle off, some apps will still open only in portrait mode. Well, here’s how you can fix that.

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First, download ‘Rotation | Orientation Manager’ by Pranav Pandey from the Google Play Store. The free app allows you to override the rotation settings on any Android phone or tablet at the sensor-level and UI-level.

Once you configure the application, should you set it to landscape, every app (except your lockscreen) will open in landscape mode as these applications will be tricked into thinking that the landscape mode is actually the portrait orientation.

Setting the app up

Once the app is downloaded, open it and follow the on-screen instructions to give the app the twi permissions it requires to function – displaying over other apps and ability to change system settings. You will then be greeted with a neat tutorial that you can go through to get the basics right, but the app is pretty usable without the tutorial also.

When on the main screen, under the orientation section, you will see a number of options like ‘Auto-rotate OFF’, ‘Auto-rotate ON’, ‘Forced Portrait’ and ‘Forced Landscape’. As the names suggest, you can use these buttons as one-tap shortcuts to toggle the orientation of your device.

Here’s how to go through the setup on the app. (Express Photo)

For instance, if you want a tablet to always work in landscape mode, simply choose the ‘Force Landscape’ mode here and you’re good to go.

Setting the app to start automatically with your device

The rotation app has put your device to landscape for good, but every restart on your tablet will still go back to square one and open your apps in portrait again. To prevent this, you can set the app to start automatically with your Android device.

To do this, head to the Settings section on the hamburger menu. This menu can be accessed by clicking on the top-left icon with three horizontal bars, or simply swiping from the left edge of the screen in the app. In the Settings, turn on the very first toggle that says ‘Start on boot’.

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You can also play around with the other settings in the app to do things like change the orientation of only select apps, display a notification every time the app changes your orientation and even change the app’s theme.