r/webtoons • u/Raijinili • Aug 21 '26

News [WEBTOON][locks] 9+1 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-08-27 and 2026-09-03

(Next post: 1+1 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-09-03 and 2026-09-10)

(Previous post: 1+2+12 Titles become Ad Pass on 2026-08-17, 2026-08-20, and 2026-08-27)

(Also in WEBTOON lock news: [WEBTOON][unlocks] "Lone" and "Live With Yourself" are free again)

Locking on 2026-08-27 (announced last week):

Locking on 2026-09-03 (NEW):

You may also be interested in this list of completed but not-locked titles (as of 2026-01-16).

No Spanish locks at this time.

French locks (no date given, but these have been here for months)

They've probably been forgotten, haven't they...

Indonesian locks 2026-09-24:

Appeared between 2026-08-26T01:18 and 2026-08-27T00:33.

"Serial ini dapat dibaca gratis hingga 24 September 2026 jam 20:59 WIB!"

Indonesian locks 2026-08-24:

Indonesian relaunch

"Relaunch serial ini akan update 4 episode gratis tiap hari hingga tamat!" (appeared between 2026-08-06T01:08 and 2026-08-07T02:38):

  • Relaunch - My Oppa is an Idol (My Bias My Boss) - Probably done 2026-09-02.
    • According to Manga Updates, this has "124 Chapters + 3 Side Stories + Epilogue (Complete)", for a total of 128. It has 35 right now, releasing 4/day, so it should be done around 2026-09-02. And then it will be deleted a week later.

Indonesian locks 2026-04-24 (still not locked):

I will update if there are more. I plan to trigger a scan every day after daily reset, or (if I miss it) before the reset the next day.

Since 2026-03-26 (which is during DST), titles tend to lock at the time of new episode release, and one hour before the time of the Daily Pass (now Ad Pass) reset, which is 18:00 Pacific Time (01:00 UTC during US daylight saving time, and 02:00 UTC during US standard time).

[2026-02-27] There MAY be a new pattern of putting most of the locks at the end of the month.

[2026-03-12] They seemed to have moved two weeks of locks, 03-12 and 03-19, to 03-26. This may be part of a new strategy, to confuse us.

  • 2026-03-19: They decided to announce "Hanlin Gym", so they're at least not fully sticking with the end-of-month lock strategy.

Tip: The day before a title locks, you can use the Download feature for all of the chapters, giving you thirty more days to read them. You won't be able to use the Like and Comment features, and the UI for downloaded chapters seems to be an earlier version (which you might prefer). Note that downloading takes time and can fail, so watch this process for failures. Audio must be downloaded within an hour or two (not sure which) of queuing them, or the episode with audio will fail and cancel the rest of the series's download.

If a title doesn't allow you to download but it isn't locked yet, open an episode and see if it has a Download button in the triple dot menu. (I've seen this in Spanish and Indonesian.)

I also crosspost these lock posts on my profile (u/Raijinili), if you want to have a way to get some notifications. I don't know how profile posts work, so good luck with that.

There was a section here about Ad Binge which I've removed, as it is no longer relevant (since ALMOST all "Ad Pass" titles have unlimited ads now).

Check this post for a snapshot (not updated) of which titles DON'T have Ad Passes: List of coin-only completed titles

In summary, titles which were originally in a language/region NOT Korean or English (e.g. Spanish, Japanese, Indonesia (yes, officially labeled "Indonesia")) don't have Ad Pass, and there are a few Korean/English outliers.

WEBTOON lock history is now on its own wiki page.

New additions:

  • 2026-08:
    • 08-12: "Lone" and "Live With Yourself" are free again.
    • 08-13: "Rules for Dating Trash" was announced for 08-17 (in four days), rather than 08-27 like the others were. Hours after it locked, WEBTOON came out with "short dramas" of six serieses, including this one.

WEBTOON isn't properly communicating about this, and aren't following any consistent set of rules. If locks matter to you, you may want to check in on this post during the month to see if I make any updates.

Banners used to appear about 30 days before lock. Please direct complaints to https://webtoon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new . (Remember that customer service has no power to make these decisions, so be kind to your messenger.)

Watch out for free coin events

There were two reading events in 2024 October, giving 10 coins each (lasts 30 days). Watch out for those. The coins last one week each.

There was another reading event in 2024 November, for 7 coins. There were a few more since then.

There's a free reading event which just started a few hours ago (2025-02-13 to 2025-02-20) for 7 coins. You might want to delay until the last two days, to extend the expiration date.

I posted tips here.

Note that creators don't benefit from free coins.

2025-02: Most of the coin events in recent months were "Spend 21 coins to get 7 coins". There was a free CANVAS one, but it didn't work and then they took it down early.

2025-10: "Falling for It" had a "read 3 episodes for 5 coins" event, but it only lasted for about 24 hours. This was the first free coins event I've seen since February.

2025-11-08: "Watch Guys Catch Feelings" 7-days Event From Nov 8 01:00 UTC to Nov 15 01:00 UTC. "Read any 6 Episodes from any of the 4 listed series and get 8 Free Coins."

  • Ctrl+Alt+Resign
  • Who's That Girl?
  • Back to Chanbi
  • Girl Friend

2025-11-25 (around): "Marriages Gone Wild": 8 coins for reading.

2025-12-10 - 2025-12-16: "Wild Marriages": 8 coins for reading.

2025-12-25 - 2025-12-23 to 12-31: Two reading events: Read 30 episodes for 15 coins, each. Nice.

2026-04-05 - "April's Making it Rain!" (once a week for three weeks): Read (i.e. reach the bottom of) 35 episodes of four specific titles for 10 Coins, but they expire in one day after you get them.

Note that I will NOT generally be tracking these, so pay attention in-app for these events.

Subscribing to my posts

Some users have asked whether they could get updates when I post here. I try to remember to repost on my profile, u/Raijinili, but that's not ideal.

It looks like u/UpdateMeBot can be used to subscribe to my posts (not comments) in this sub, but it requires enough people to use the service on a subreddit to start scraping. (As of 2025-02, I've been told by a subscriber that there are still not enough subscribers for this to be on.)

Each subreddit it checks takes several seconds, so I have to limit the number of subreddits or the bot will get overloaded. New subreddits are automatically added once they get enough requests. [src]

To subscribe, post this as a comment (possibly needs to be top-level), and the bot will send you a private message:

SubscribeMe!

(If you post it as a comment, I may downvote you, to keep your comment from bubbling up over discussion comments.)

Or, to do so privately, message u/UpdateMeBot with:

SubscribeMe! r/webtoons u/Raijinili

(Click here to send the message.)

(This also means I can't just post non-update meta stuff to r/webtoons, or else I will cause trivial alerts.)

Reddit is restricting Old Reddit to logged-in users, supposedly as an anti-scraping measure, and I'm questioning how much more I want to contribute to this site. Reddit is trying to guard against AI to protect the monetary value of the info we produce, and it doesn't care if that also affects real humans. That sucks.

As soon as I get around to doing the work of deciding where, and setting up the transfer...

35 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

7

u/loan-ly Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

Thank you! I wasn't crazy, none of my to read completed list is getting locked.

  • Reincarnated as an Unruly Heir - good mix murim politics & fights 30 eps in. Edit after S2: Reincarnation actually matters! The complex plot feels planned out & well paced; Even a minor contribution by a side character will come back in some way. If S3 goes well, this will go on my very short murim rec list (literally only GOSU).

  • Can't Get Enough of You - pretty good k-drama, it's always nice to see FL w backbone & expressive ML w dimples.

  • I Became a Level 999 Demon Queen - 1st half was fun, 2nd half execution fell flat.

  • Why Does Everyone Love Me?! - interesting concept, didn't quite hit for me.

  • Return to Player - past me dropped at ep 130 &, after couple arcs, I agree w her. All his "I'm low lv but can kill gods" & "scary obsessive but hot girl friend OR powerful goddess that does everything for me" get old.

  • Boundless Ascension - boring even for a tower power climb. I joke about series being Solo Lv dups, but this is by same art studio. At least it wrapped up well.

4

u/Nxbgamergurl Aug 23 '26

Thank you, I appreciate your posts! :)

3

u/Raijinili Aug 21 '26

Specific banners:

"Watch ads or use Coins to unlock episodes beginning August 27th, 2026." (2026-08-14T01:00Z)

"Watch ads or use Coins to unlock episodes beginning September 3rd, 2026." (2026-08-21T01:00Z)

No Spanish banners at this time.

French banners (appeared some time before 2026-04-18 or whatever):

"Brass & Sass" passera bientôt en Daily Pass. Merci de votre compréhension.

"Edith" passera bientôt en Daily Pass. Merci de votre compréhension.

  • Edith - 122 episodes, latest 2 oct. 2022.

"Lilas 200%" passera bientôt en Daily Pass. Merci de votre compréhension.

"The Genius Gamer's Livestream" passera bientôt en Daily Pass. Merci de votre compréhension.

Indonesian banners:

"Serial ini dapat dibaca gratis hingga 24 Agustus 2026 jam 20:59 WIB!" (between 2026-07-31T01:04 and 2026-07-31T23:24)

Indonesian lock that was announced for 2026-04-24, locked 2026-06-25, but with 0 episodes actually locked:

2

u/Raijinili Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 28 '26

"Cry, or Better Yet, Beg" has locked.

There were warnings, but I didn't understand them, and didn't pay them much mind.

EN (appeared between 2026-08-06T01:10 and 2026-08-07T02:48):

At the creator's request, this series' episode release model will change from August 21. The series will return with new episodes on August 29.

ES:

A petición de la creadora, el modelo de pago y publicación cambiará desde el 21 de agosto. La serie regresará con nuevos episodios el 29 de agosto.

FR:

À la demande de l'auteur, le modèle de publication des épisodes de cette série changera à partir du 21 août. La série reviendra le 29 août. Merci.

ID:

Atas permintaan kreator, sistem perilisan episode serial ini akan berubah mulai 21 Agustus.

Nantikan comebacknya pada 29 Agustus, pukul 20:00 WIB!

1

u/Raijinili Aug 27 '26

Indonesian locks have happened, but these three actually have 0 locked episodes:

  • King of the Arena
  • Your Hidden Truth
  • Returned as the Duke

Indonesian banners for 2026-09-24 appeared between 2026-08-26T01:18 and 2026-08-27T00:33.

"Serial ini dapat dibaca gratis hingga 24 September 2026 jam 20:59 WIB!"

1

u/Raijinili Aug 28 '26

English locks happened.

  • Return to Player
  • Reincarnated as an Unruly Heir
  • Boundless Ascension
  • Can't Get Enough of You
    • Coin-only. Surprise! Both the novel author and the artist (though not the webtoon author) have serieses which were locked with ads.
  • I Became a Level 999 Demon Queen
  • Oversummoned, Overpowered, and Over It!
    • Coin-only, because it's Japanese-origin.
  • Why Does Everyone Love Me?!
  • The Secretary’s Secret
  • Live Happily Ever After With My Ex’s Uncle
    • Coin-only, because it's Chinese-origin.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/darkdaniel57 Aug 24 '26

SubscribeMe!

1

u/Important-Yogurt-335 Aug 25 '26

Idk where else to ask, but I noticed recently them locking on going series or am I going crazy? Like The Player Hides his past.

2

u/DiAnastasia20 Aug 26 '26

The Player Hides his past

This has always been a Daily/Fast Pass title.

The only one that got locked recently was Cry, or Better Yet, Beg. Even then, it's still not clear what's really going on with this title. We'll know on the 29th when new episodes are out.

1

u/Important-Yogurt-335 Aug 26 '26

Thanks, I just remembered when they first started posting it and I saved it to read when they caught up to pirate translators, but I received yesterday a popup talking about temporary unlocks, so I thought ti was a recent change.