I’ve been having this issue for a few days now. In previous weeks, it was only previewing as sideways but somehow uploading correctly once it synced, but now they appear to be stuck sideways permanently.
orientation is captured in photo metadata. does time / location get imported correctly from the photos into the observations? if not, there could be some sort of problem preventing the metadata from getting to the iNat app.
Sometimes my phone(android) doesn’t know if I want landscape or portrait orientation when holding the phone parallel to the ground. I think it depends on how it was tilted as you turn it horizontal. I edit all my photos before uploading, so I fix them.
Or a setting in the app is set to landscape.
Post your photo from your phone here, lets see if it is in landscape or portrait.
I have this problem too - android app, same version as OP. I first started using iNat on my old Samsung Galaxy S9+ and I never had this issue, the iNat app always correctly recognized the orientation of photos taken with my phone’s camera. Since getting a newer phone (Galaxy S25+) all photos I upload are consistently landscape oriented, even if they are portrait oriented in my gallery (which a lot of my plant photos are!). I always have to edit and rotate each photo one by one in the iNat app which is a little annoying.
I have noticed a few sideways observations lately. I just thought the observers wanted to upload them this way for some reason (LOL). Thanks for sharing…now I understand. Hopefully this can get fixed soon.
Two days ago everything worked fine. Since then all photos I upload are sideways. This also happens when I try to reupload the exact same photos that I uploaded two days ago when it was still working fine.
If I try to upload the same photo with my PC via Website they get loaded correctly.
Same problem; has been happening since at least Oct 17. Samsung Galaxy S24,One UI-Version 8.0; Android version 16; App version 1.37.2. All photos are oriented correctly in my photo gallery.
The associated iNaturalist observation can be found here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/322791437 (I have manually rotated them in the iNaturalist app. This works, but is highly time consuming for a lot of photos and is really frustrating)
I’ve just noted the same problem (Oct. 29) with my Samsung Galaxy S24. The photo is taken in portrait orientation, appears portrait in my gallery, then uploads with 90 degree rotation. The image editing rotation function also lagged and changes to the observation only appeared after leaving and re-opening the observation.
How are you all getting the image(s) into the app: are you starting in iNat and importing the photos from within iNat, or are you sharing to iNat from your phone’s gallery?
Are the images stored in a cloud service when you get them to iNat, or are they downloaded to your device?
1: Opening iNat → Add observation → Select photo → Option “Choose photos from…” Gallery (the standard Android/Samsung Gallery) → choose one image which is displayed as a portrait image → click OK → photo gets loaded in landscape
2: Opening iNat → Add observation → Select photo → Option “Choose photos from…” Files (the standard Android/Samsung Files manager) → browse to choose DCIM/camera → choose one image which is displayed as a portrait image → click OK → photo gets loaded in landscape
At trying this I came across something unusual: Only photos I took with my Samsung S25+ have this problem now. When I upload photos with my S25+ which are my photos by my Canon R7, older photos I took with older smartphones, WhatsApp photos I received and screenshots I don’t get this problem. All photos are saved locally and are not connected to any cloud service.
Thanks, I was able to replicate the bug with this photo and I made an issue for our developers. I suspect we’re not reading its rotation metadata properly.
For me, it happens both when I select them from my Gallery app, hit share, and select iNaturalist as well as when I open the iNat app and choose to add a photo. They’re all locally stored.
I’ve been having the same problem for the about the last two or three weeks. All photos uploaded are in landscape, meaning all my trees are sideways, sky on the left, ground on the right.
Also using a Samsung S24+ on One UI 7. I’ve noticed a lot of the reports are related to Samsung devices.
