How to Rotate or Flip an Image
Updated September 18, 2026
A photo imported sideways, a scan that came in upside down, or a selfie that looks mirrored — these are all fixed by rotating or flipping the image. They sound similar but do different things, and this guide covers both.
The fastest method
1. Open the rotate image tool to turn the image, or the flip image tool to mirror it. 2. Upload your image. 3. Apply the rotation or flip and download the result.
Everything runs in your browser, so the image is never uploaded to a server.
Rotate vs flip — the difference
- Rotate turns the image around its centre: 90° clockwise to fix a sideways photo, 180° for an upside-down scan, or a small angle to straighten a crooked horizon. The content keeps its orientation, it just points a different way.
- Flip mirrors the image across an axis: a horizontal flip swaps left and right (like a mirror), a vertical flip swaps top and bottom. Text in a flipped image reads backwards — that is the giveaway that something was flipped rather than rotated.
Use rotate to correct orientation; use flip to mirror the composition or undo a mirrored selfie.
Fixing a photo that looks sideways only on some devices
Sometimes a photo looks upright on your phone but sideways on a computer. That is an EXIF orientation issue: the pixels are sideways, but a hidden tag tells some apps to rotate the display. Apps that ignore the tag show it sideways. Rotating the image actually turns the pixels and re-saves, so it looks correct everywhere. As a side effect, re-saving also drops the orientation tag and other metadata — usually a good thing for images headed to the web.
Straightening a tilted horizon
If the image is only slightly off — a horizon that leans a few degrees — use a small rotation to level it, then crop to remove the empty triangles that appear at the corners after a small rotation.
Summary
1. Rotate to fix sideways or upside-down images; flip to mirror them. 2. A backwards-reading result means the image was flipped, not rotated. 3. Rotating re-saves the pixels, which fixes "sideways only on some devices" for good.