Archive.org app: is it really the best option?

Archive.org does have an app, and we love it. But, we don’t think its the best resource to use for the most common use case!

Many people are using the Internet Archive to access full articles for free, or bypass a paywall. If that’s what you’re aiming to do, you might be disappointed by the functionality of the app, which is little clunky for this.

What we recommend is using the removepaywalls.com iOS Shortcut – to allow one-click access to an article without paywalls from your browsers “share actions” sheet(this icon ). It works on both chrome and Safari.


Our iPhone shortcut makes it very fast to bypass paywalls (one-click!). Instructions to install are below, takes no time at all, and once you install, it will add an option to the “share actions” (this icon ), that will take you straight through the paywall. Instructions below for Chrome and Safari, but it should work for any browser!

Instructions to install

  1. Visit the shortcut link on icloud.com here
  2. Click “Get Shortcut” on that page
  3. Click “Add shortcut” on the iOS popup that appears
  4. Done!

Then, whenever you are on an article behind a paywall, click the share actions button (), scroll down to the bottom of the actions, where you should see the RemovePaywalls.Com action. Click it, and the full article should load.

Screenshots of how to install and use

First, visit the icloud page hosting the shortcut, and click “Get shortcut”.

An iOS window for the native shortcuts app should popup. Click the button “Add shortcut”.

Installation is now complete. When you are on an article behind a paywall, click the share actions button (). Here is where you find it on chrome

And here is where you find it on Safari

Once you click the share actions button (), scroll to the bottom of the actions available until you find the one called RemovePaywalls.Com. Click on that, and you should be taken to the full article.

If this isn’t working for you, reach out to us at info@removepaywalls.com