How to bypass paywalls on iPhone
On iPhone you have three good options for reading past a soft or metered paywall — Safari's Reader, a Share-Sheet Shortcut, and a reader-first web tool. Here is how to set up each.
Which walls this works on
These methods handle soft and metered paywalls, where the article text is delivered to your phone. Hard subscription walls (WSJ, The Times, The Washington Post) send only a preview without a login; their full text comes from a public archive copy or your library app.
Fastest: paste into a reader tool
Copy the article link, open RemovePaywall, and tap "📋 Paste link & read" — it extracts the clean article and checks public archives automatically. Nothing to install.
Read a paywalled article on iPhone
- Safari Reader. Open the article in Safari, tap the "Aa" at the left of the address bar, then "Show Reader". On soft walls this strips the overlay instantly.
- A one-tap Shortcut. In the Shortcuts app, make a Shortcut that receives URLs from the Share Sheet and opens https://removepaywall.co/search?url=[Shared URL]. Then use Share → your Shortcut on any article.
- The web tool. Copy the link, open removepaywall.co, and tap "📋 Paste link & read" — it extracts the article or finds a public archive.
- Your library app. For hard walls, open Libby or PressReader and sign in with your library card to read major papers free and legally.
Live success rates
Unlike other tools, RemovePaywall publishes how often it works for each outlet, measured from real use. See the live list.
Got an article in mind? Try it now: