When I switch to landscape mode (NUMPAD 7 or CTRL+F11) the emulator rotates the screen to landscape orientation but the Android OS and none of the apps rotate. So everything is sitting sideways. Is there something in the AVD configuration that needs to be set in order for the device to rotate properly?

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Wow i've never seen that before...is your program still running in the background? – JPM Sep 12 '11 at 21:50
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I believe it's a bug with 2.3 + emulator. Try 2.2. – dmon Sep 12 '11 at 21:53
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As that's on the home screen that's exactly what I'd expect to see. I don't use the emulator but my HTC Desire doesn't switch orientation on any of the home screens when I rotate. – Squonk Sep 12 '11 at 22:04
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1It doesn't rotate for the home screen or any app or menu, etc. It appears to only do this for the Google APIs (Google Inc.) 2.3.3 API Level-10 AVD. The normal Android 2.3.3 seems to rotate as expected. Not sure if this is a bug or what. – Jake Wilson Sep 12 '11 at 22:06
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http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4535298/how-to-rotate-android-emulator – Bilal Mujeeb Sep 12 '11 at 22:11
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I can confirm this. The emulator for Android 2.3.x (2.3.3 and 2.3.1) doesn't handle screen rotation. However, the emaultor for Android 2.2 does handle screen rotation. – Ofir Oct 09 '11 at 10:12
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Android emulator 2.3.3 does not contain this bug. – user1313024 Aug 29 '12 at 05:11
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2I have the same problem with Android 4.1 (Google) emulator. Switching keyboard off does not help. – Stan Aug 10 '13 at 19:36
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I had this problem with an API 4.3 "small phone" and none of the suggestions here worked. However, the big tablet starts horizontally and will (sluggishly) reorient. – CodeClown42 Nov 25 '13 at 16:20
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See instructions here for manually rotating: http://stackoverflow.com/a/14253321/139560 – Jamie Kitson Apr 23 '14 at 10:04
26 Answers
Another answer here:
in my case the problem was simply that the auto-rotate setting in the android emulator settings (accessible pulling down the notification bar) was disabled, my bad.

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Doh! That was my problem too, I feel like a dummy. I'm new to Android (used iOS for years) and have realized that auto-rotate is enabled by default on iOS, but disabled by default on Android. – Mike Mar 20 '20 at 21:02
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18This. I feel that Locked Rotation shouldn't be the default as it throws a lot of new developers off. – Floating Sunfish Jun 04 '20 at 07:30
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1looks like that's the default setup which is honestly dumb, seeing that I don't know that's disabled without digging into the settings. Google should fix this so that it's on by default. – Eman Feb 01 '21 at 20:45
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I've spent way too long on this and it's not even finning. I developed most of my app functionality thinking that rotation is disabled for my app until I realized that it isn't as I put it on a tablet for testing :facepalm: OMG... – ThisQRequiresASpecialist Oct 10 '22 at 10:52
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2023 and still the same broken default setting. But @abidibo's insight, continues to save us all. – qwertynik Jul 11 '23 at 09:17
I spent more time then I'd like to admit scratching my head why my app was rotating fine on my device but not in the emulator... in the emulator pull the drop-down OS menu and make sure "auto-rotate" is enabled.

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this should be the accepted answer! it's insane, that the default emulator setting is to lock screen orientation... – nsimeonov Sep 27 '20 at 04:52
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In my case it was solved by disabling the "Hardware keyboard present" checkbox in the "Edit Android Virtual Device (AVD)" window.

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3This worked for me with a Honeycomb emulator that was behaving the same way. – Neil Jul 19 '13 at 12:30
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2This solved the problem for me when creating an Android 3.0, API 11, Android Virtual Device. – John Bentley Jul 12 '14 at 05:28
It is a bug with the 2.3 and 4.4 emulators.
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=13189 [v2.3]
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=61671 [v4.4]

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37The problem still happens w/ the Android 4.4 emulator for me as well. Someone else reported it in that thread too :-P – kenyee Nov 28 '13 at 02:27
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Yes, the problem still exists in Android 4.4.2 emulator. It simply rotates the screen and does not display the corresponding layout file under the corresponding res/layout folder. I have verified this by running in a nexus device where it works as expected. – Rajaraman Subramanian Mar 09 '14 at 17:53
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As a workaround disable the "Hardware keyboard present" checkbox in the "Edit Android Virtual Device (AVD)" window as @cprcrack sais in http://stackoverflow.com/a/16121394/327786 – TlmaK0 Jan 30 '16 at 11:32
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The valid answer to this issue for 2021 is https://stackoverflow.com/a/52536394/778587 – Eman Feb 01 '21 at 20:46
API Level 29 here. By default the rotate is disabled. Pull Down the drop-down of the mobile and enable it.

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In my case the Skin option in AVD settings was the problem. When I selected "No skin", it worked.

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I had same problem. Try removing the "Keyboard lid support" option in the settings of the hardwere virtual machine. It helped me.

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I made a silly mistake and spent a lot of time for the problem on API 30. Checked Auto-rotate
setting and other answers here but tried the rotation on the main Android screen, which is not rotated! You need to open some app (your own or a default one, like 'Messages' or 'Browser') to see the rotation works.

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To be clear, the Setting is in the EMULATOR's Settings App, not the side bar "..." settings. – P. Ent Jul 23 '21 at 16:15
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As of mid 2015 the issue is still open and logged in the android bug tracker here's the link you can check it out https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=61671
None of the above solutions worked for me and i am using Android 4.4.2 emulator. As a work around in your graphical layout you can change the orientation and check it out.

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Once you click the change orientation button, a small icon displays on the emulator asking if you want to change the orientation of the emulated screen. It only displays for a few seconds, so look next to the "bottom" icons and you will see this temporary icon.
This works with the emulator keyboard on or off.
I am running Pixel 2 API 29, Android 10.0 (latest versions as at today)

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I had to do all the following on an Android 10 device:
- verify that I had in
config.ini
:
hw.accelerometer = yes
hw.sensors.orientation = yes
- Set the device to auto-rotate from status bar.
- Set the home-screen to auto-rotate
Long press at home screen > "Home settings"
"Allow Home screen rotation" set to ON

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Is the accelerometer property of the emulator set to True? please check it. if not, set it to true. it should help. its working fine on mine.
Open AVD Manager -> GoTo 'Device Definitions' tab -> Select an existing AVD -> Clone
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@Jakobud Open AVD Manager -> GoTo 'Device Definitions' tab -> Select an existing AVD -> Clone – mr5 Jul 12 '14 at 09:18
I had to install a new virtual device Nexus on API LEVEL 27 On Api Level 28(PIE) I could not rotate the display.

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As of API 29, it stops working randomly for no reason. Need to shutdown and restart emulator, then it works again.

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I got this to work with the latest version of AVD.
Check out the config :
Also, here is the result:
I think wha tmakes it click is the combination of keyboard and Skin. Also, if you create your own device make sure you add a Gyroscope sensor.

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You have to use Android 5.1.1, aka API 22, aka Android 5.1 LOLLIPOP_MR1. Download Android 5.1.1 (API 22) in your Android SDK Manager and when you create a new Android Virtual Device select that as your OS.
As war_Hero mentioned, this bug was reported to Google. The bug is now fixed as of Mar 23 '15:

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In my case you need to click a small button that would enable the orientation to change, right after you press the main change orientation button.

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Can this be made automatic when changing orientation in the right side bar? – A.W. Oct 09 '20 at 11:14
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1Actually it works. [https://stackoverflow.com/a/63861830/351688](https://stackoverflow.com/a/63861830/351688) answer works for me. Toggling this setting now automatically changes orientation without having to click an extra button in the emulator – A.W. Oct 14 '20 at 07:24
I had to first press and hold rotate until I got into the menu.
Then toggle Auto-rotate screen
to true.

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on expo you must change app.json file
{
"expo": {
"orientation": "default",
}
}
and turn on Auto-rotate from settings panel

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I had the same problem, I instantly fixed it by simply deleting the device from the AVD list and just creating a new one.

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Only way to get this to work is to use FroYo API AVD
For anyone with this issue, this is how I set up old Froyo AVD to test this scenario:
My Manifest min version is already 8, which is Froyo
< uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="8" android:targetSdkVersion="21" />
You can see SDK_API_VERSION information here. http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/uses-sdk-element.html
In the SDK manager Installed the needed version:
http://screencast.com/t/KKZokotI4T
Created a new AVD for the new version.

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On API level 25 (no skin) it worked after going into the setting, searching for "rotate" and toggling both related settings off and on again.

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Pixel 2 - API 28 (Android 9)
I had to do this to fix it.
- Open AVD Manager
- Select Pixel 2 - API X
- Edit
- Show Advanced Settings
- Untick "Enable keyboard Input"
Only this has worked for me.

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I am using API29
with Pixel-4
and Android 10.0
on ubuntu-20.04
with React-Native
I tried all the things mentioned here,
- enabled
auto-rotate
on mobile. - unchecked
Hardware keyboard present
on AVD.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work for me.
Finally after Restarting my system and expo
$ expo start
# OR
$ npm start

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When cloning a new virtual device, you have to enable the Accelerometer sensor. But sometimes the configurations are not written to the virtual device's config.ini file properly. Path: \Users\yourusername\.android\avd\virtualdevicename.avd
You have to check the properties and make sure these two properties are set to yes:
hw.accelerometer = yes
hw.sensors.orientation = yes

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For Android Emulator 3.7 WVGA Nexus One I should have down graded the Android Version (it was 11 and i downloaded Pie (9) ), the rotation works now.

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