Can I rotate my Youtube videos?
QI uploaded my holiday videos to Youtube, which took a while because I live in the sticks where broadband isn’t so broad. As I uploaded the lot as a batch and left my computer running over several nights, I only realised after they were all online that I’d captured them all upsidedown. My smartphone makes sure the orientation’s correct, so I don’t know why this happened – but I now have a bunch of Youtube videos that all need rotating 180 degrees. Is there a way to do this without having to upload them all over again? If not, how do I do it on my PC? And why did my phone allow this to happen?
Andrew Wright
AYou’re in luck, because Youtube does offer a rotate feature – but it’s pretty well hidden.
First, log into Youtube, click your avatar icon (at the top right) and then click the Creator Studio button. Now click VIDEO MANAGER on the left-hand side, followed by Videos. In the list on the right, locate an affected video then click its Edit button. Now click Enhancements at the top, followed by two clicks on either the ‘Rotate left’ or ‘Rotate right’ buttons (curly arrows, just to the right of the preview window - see screenshot). Click the blue Save button (top right) to make the change permanent.
We can’t say for sure why your smartphone did this, but it could be a setting in the phone’s camera app. You can’t fix the camera’s orientation in Apple’s IOS for iphones (though you can fix screen orientation, which isn’t the same thing). Some Android camera apps have an orientation lock, but the setting’s location varies greatly: look for a menu button (usually three horizontal dots or lines), and explore.
Another possibility is that your smartphone’s accelerometer (which is the component in the device that detects physical orientation) has become confused, or developed a fault. Sometimes resetting the device helps – hold down the power button on Android, or power and the home key on an iphone.