Viewing your Blogger Blog on a Phone

Viewing my Blog on a Computer Viewing my Blog on a Phone
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I use Blogger for my personal, travel blog. I’ve been using it since 2003,  long before smartphones came on the scene. In the screenshots above you can see how my Blog looks when viewed on a computer vs on a phone. This is one of the many things I like about Blogger.com – it handles formatting for different devices automatically. I did nothing to make this happen. Just because I use Blogger, and a standard Blogger template, a small screen view is created for me with the following characteristics:

  1. It has shrunk the top banner photo to fit
  2. Collapsed each post to just one photo and the opening paragraph  with an arrow to view more
  3. Changed the horizontal menu to a vertical drop-down list (just tap where it reads Personal Blog and you’ll see Our Maps, Our Photos, etc.)
  4. Eliminated the sidebar

Wait … “eliminated the sidebar?” What if I need something that is on that sidebar? I use the archives a lot to find past posts. How can I see that on my phone?

Here’s the fix:

  • Chrome browser: tap the 3-dot menu at the top right, then select “Request Desktop Site”
  • Safari browser: touch and hold (longpress) the refresh arrow image at top right, then select “Request Desktop Site”

That’s it. You should now be seeing the blog just as it appears on a computer. It will be tiny, but you can use two fingers on the screen and spread them to zoom in on whatever you want to see.