Amazon Fire TV Stick is Stuck Zoomed In – How To Unzoom

According to the TechJunkie mailbox, an Amazon Fire Stick screen that gets stuck when zoomed in is quite common. Added as part of a range of accessibility features, zoom allows you to enlarge a part of your screen to make text clearer and larger. What should happen is that you zoom in, read the text and then return the screen to normal size. Sometimes that doesn’t happen so this tutorial will discuss what to do if your Amazon Fire Stick is stuck on zoom.

Zooming in and out on an Amazon Fire Stick is part of the Screen Magnifier feature introduced last year in version 5.2.6.0. With a key combination on the remote, you can zoom into a particular area of the displayed screen to make it larger. You toggle it on and off manually and it should zoom in and then out again once you repeat the key combination.

The zoom window also adds a helpful orange border to let you know you are zoomed in to make life a little easier.

The accessibility features added to the Amazon Fire Stick also include Closed Captions, audio descriptions, VoiceView for Fire TV and high contrast text. Closed Captions add subtitles for the hard of hearing. Audio descriptions add a descriptive soundtrack for those with sight issues and VoiceView for Fire TV speaks menu options when you’re navigating the menus. High contrast text makes all text more visible for visually impaired users. All aim to make the Amazon Fire Stick accessible to anyone regardless of ability.

Amazon Fire Stick Stuck on Zoom

This hasn’t happened to me yet but having asked around, it has happened to others.

If you press Back and Fast Forward on the Amazon Fire Stick remote for five seconds you will enable Screen Magnifier.

Hold Back and Fast Forward again to disable it.

Press Menu and Fast Forward to zoom in and Menu and Rewind to zoom out. Sounds simple right?

If neither combination works to unzoom your Amazon Fire Stick, try one of these fixes. They apparently work in some situations.

Alternate Key Combinations

As mentioned, the combination is Menu and Fast Forward to zoom in, Menu and Rewind to zoom out or Menu and Play to disable and enable Screen Magnifier. If one combination doesn’t work, try the other. Hold the keys down for 5-10 seconds to see if anything changes.

Turn off Screen Magnifier

If you don’t need visual assistance, you can just turn the feature off in the Settings menu. It should then turn your screen back to normal magnification whether you were able to undo the zoom or not.

1. Navigate to Settings and Accessibility within your Amazon Fire Stick and toggle Screen Magnifier to Off.

Reset Your Amazon Firestick

If the above options don’t unzoom your Firestick, reboot it or remove it from the TV to reset it. Leave it 30 seconds and then replace it in the TV. Give it another 30 seconds to boot and see if the screen has returned to normal. This should reset the screen back to normal again and you can then enable or disable Screen Magnifier as you see fit.

Check the TV and Apps on Your Amazon Firestick

It sounds obvious but more than one person I spoke to about this issue said they tried all sorts to unzoom on their Amazon Fire Stick only to find it wasn’t the Firestick at all. Some smart TVs have zoom features, as does Kodi. If you have such a TV or Kodi installed on your Firestick, it may be worth checking.

One giveaway will  be the lack of orange border on the zoomed screen. The Amazon Firestick adds that border to let you know you’re zoomed. If there is a border its your Firestick. If there is not a border, then it isn’t.

If you have Kodi installed, it may have zoomed in rather than the Firestick. It’s easy to check.

1. Fire up Kodi on your Amazon Firestick.
2. Select Interface Settings and Skin.
3. Ensure Zoom is set to 0% in the pane on the right.

Logically speaking, if Kodi isn’t running on your Amazon Fire Stick, it shouldn’t cause the screen to zoom but as there is a zoom feature and it is installed on the Firestick, it is definitely worth checking. The same for your smart TV if it has its own zoom feature.

Calibrate Your Screen

If you find your Amazon Fire Stick keeps getting stuck in zoom, it might be worth calibrating your screen.

1. Open the Settings menu on your Amazon Fire Stick.
2. Now, scroll over and select Display & Sounds.
3. Next, click on Calibrate Display.
4. Follow the wizard to change alignment of the screen and select Accept when finished.

This may, or may not stop the Firestick randomly zooming in.