Fix photo orientation/rotation on Apple TV

Issue

Some JPGs in iCloud Photos display with the correct orientation on Macs, iPhones, and iPads, but appear rotated or sideways on Apple TV:

• Photos displayed sideways

• Apple TV: Photo landscape instead of portret (sic)

• Photos from iPhone are wrong orientation on Apple TV using Airplay

• tv4k sideways

• Apple TV rotates screen saver photos

• Orientation of Photos-Apple TV (jsnod replied in part, "This is a known issue, and Apple has a fix posted here http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305236 HOWEVER, that fix is Mac/iPhoto specific." Sadly, the link is dead and does not appear to be archived by the Wayback Machine.)

Resolution

1. Export affected photos from Photos.app to Finder (e.g., ~/Desktop/sideways/)

2. Install jhead (GH | brew | MacPorts)

3. cd ~/Desktop/sideways/

4. jhead -autorot *

5. Replace the affected photos in Photos.app with the corrected files from ~/Desktop/sideways/.

Related

• exiftran, ImageMagick, and other options are covered in How to rotate images automatically, based on exif data

• From the "Organize photos" section of Keyboard shortcuts and gestures in Photos on Mac:

  • Command-Delete: Delete a photo or item from the library

  • Delete: Remove a photo from an album (but not from the library)

• Renaming and Filing Photos and Videos in the HEIC/HEIF era

❧ 2026-06-19