With 26.3, my wallpapers started appearing upside down.
I have a folder with my favourite photos, and every 15 minutes it changes the wallpaper. I had this for the past 10 years, and in 26.3, some of the photos started to appear upside down.
Anyone else is having this issue?
MacBook Pro (M4 Pro, 2024)
It's not ideal, and we should;dn't have to be finding solutions to this.
After updating macOS from Tahoe 26.2 → 26.3, the desktop wallpaper engine stopped respecting the EXIF Orientation tag in images. Previously, if an image had metadata saying “Rotate 180,” macOS would display it upright. Now, wallpapers show the raw pixel orientation, so images relying on the tag appear upside down.
Why some images behave differently:
Solution (simplest approach):
What I did, with an MacBook M4 Pro; took me a few minutes: (~350 photos)
This has been fixed for quite some time. Just update your OS.
Are you near an apple store? Have you thought of booking appointment and going there incase they can fix it.
This was a brilliant, easy fix. However I do hope they fix this issue, quite a pain.
Problem is fixed with the latest update. Thanks Apple!
mcplat13 wrote:
I have the same issue. When following these steps to fix the bug, my photo shows in Preview right side up, so what to do? Apple should issue a fix for this.
Did you update to 26.4? It came out yesterday, and should have fixed this.
By the way, you'd get it "fixed" by merely exporting the file again from Preview (not rotating anything). But apparently it is no longer necessary.
I have the same issue. When following these steps to fix the bug, my photo shows in Preview right side up, so what to do? Apple should issue a fix for this.
Psych13 wrote:
@Jim505 I read your reply before it was modified by Apple and couldn't agree with you more. The onus should not be placed on the customer. Apple should be fixing this issue pronto.
You may not have to wait very long.
@Jim505 I read your reply before it was modified by Apple and couldn't agree with you more. The onus should not be placed on the customer. Apple should be fixing this issue pronto.
Thank you. That did work for at least the one photo I tried. Success!
It is a workaround so it would be nice if Apple just fixed the bug, but this workaround works.
Great! Maybe you would like to help me do that for the 2,319 photos I have in my Wallpaper folder!
[Edited by Moderator]
Solution I found is to edit the photo in Photos and crop it slightly. Hit Done. And then save it as wallpaper. Now it will be upright instead of rotated. Hope Apple soon fixes this bug as it is very annoying.
Adams261 wrote:
All I reported it but choose to disagree with you to an extent.
Yes security items are top priority, however, what brings my wife joy is the simple functions. Like a wallpaper that changes and shows her grandkids etc. My problem is I expect that apple will learn from past experience and ensure proper testing of all features based on that experience. On virtually all major updates of the OS for the last 4 years, the wallpaper function has had significant issues. Therefore, It seems to me that it should now be on a list of things that are commonly need to be checked carefully as redesigns occur. I believe apple should do better and not ask the customer to rework old files that have worked for years.
Understood, and I don't argue with your points.
I also feel that the burden should not be on users to figure out what to do about this issue, which seems like a bug. I think the best way to elevate it at Apple is for many users to report it. It seems there are some good ideas coming out about how to deal with the wallpaper issues, here in this forum, but the problem does not look solved to me yet.
I understand that for many users, the interface is everything. My wife is like that and she is not amenable to changes in things she is used to being a certain way. My daughter is the same way as well.
jim505 wrote:
My MacBook Air is set to "Center" and some photos still come out displayed incorrectly. But it seems to be quite random, in that some photos in a given batch (all taken with the same iPhone during a specific trip) show up rotated while others do not. How can this be explained away with incorrectly interpreting EXIF location and rotation data?
Simple, really.
The user may have taken some photos with the iPhone positioned like this:
and other photos with the iPhone positioned like this:
Obviously they should both appear correctly, and they do, in Preview, Photos, Safari, etc.
There is a bug in how the wallpaper is displayed, that shows one of them upside down.
Now some users report that it is not so, but I have consistently reproduced this behavior in 26.3.*
My MacBook Air is set to "Center" and some photos still come out displayed incorrectly. But it seems to be quite random, in that some photos in a given batch (all taken with the same iPhone during a specific trip) show up rotated while others do not. How can this be explained away with incorrectly interpreting EXIF location and rotation data? (2025 MacBook Air; M4 w/ 16GB; Tahoe 26.3.1) Interestingly, this "batch" of photos contains many that were taken with my Nikon (distinguished by a date/time stamp in the lower right) and I am NOW paying much more attention as to whether or not any of them appear incorrect. (They do NOT have any GPS or other location data associated with them.)
All I reported it but choose to disagree with you to an extent.
Yes security items are top priority, however, what brings my wife joy is the simple functions. Like a wallpaper that changes and shows her grandkids etc. My problem is I expect that apple will learn from past experience and ensure proper testing of all features based on that experience. On virtually all major updates of the OS for the last 4 years, the wallpaper function has had significant issues. Therefore, It seems to me that it should now be on a list of things that are commonly need to be checked carefully as redesigns occur. I believe apple should do better and not ask the customer to rework old files that have worked for years.
Wallpapers appearing upside down in macOS Tahoe 26.3
