Riot blocked game-memory access for unknown apps on October 6, 2026. What it means for yours
Not a ban. Since October 6, 2026 Riot blocks game memory access by default for third-party apps it doesn't know. Tools it knows and has approved keep access until April 2027, then must use the official APIs. Riot says the change does not result in bans by itself, and it names no app, platform or company. If your app stopped working, the maker's update notes are the place to look.
Updated . Written by the maker of LazyElo, so read it as one side's view; every fact about another app or about Riot links to its source, and where our sources are silent the page says so. Riot's notice is quoted word for word; everything else is dated secondary reporting or a maker's own page. This page predicts nothing about bans.
What Riot said, word for word
“Starting October 6, 2026, Riot will begin proactively preventing game memory access by default for all unknown third-party applications”
“For known and currently approved tools, we will have an extended grace period until April 2027, after which time, they will need to have switched to the official APIs”
“While we don't want to promise that any specific application will remain functional” and “This change does not result in bans by itself.”
The page applies to all of Riot's games, League, TFT and VALORANT included, and gives cheats, bot farms and AI-assisted reverse engineering as the reason. Developers can move features to the approved APIs, request new API data, or retire features; players should follow their app's updates, and anyone whose app stopped working can file a support ticket.
Source: Riot Support: Game Memory Access Removed for Third Party Apps (Sep 29, 2026)
Timeline
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| When | What happened | Source and how to read it |
|---|---|---|
| March 13, 2025 | Riot bans enemy ultimate timers in companion apps; apps had to remove them or lose their API keys. | Secondary reporting; Riot's developer docs confirm the rule without a date.[1, 2, 3] |
| May 29, 2025 | Riot's general developer policies updated: a free tier is required, no ads inside Riot's own client or game, no MMR calculators, products “should not remove game decisions”. | Riot's own page, with that date as last updated.[4] |
| December 5, 2025 | M.O.B.A. Network launches a standalone Porofessor on Electron, next to the Overwolf build. | A vendor change, not a Riot one; it shows apps can move engines when they need to.[5] |
| September 29, 2026 | Riot Support publishes “Game Memory Access Removed for Third Party Apps”. | The primary source for everything on this page.[6] |
| October 6, 2026 | The block starts for unknown third-party apps. The same patch cycle (26.20, later reported as moved to 26.21) limits replay downloads to a player's own matches. | Riot's notice for the block; secondary reporting for the replay change.[6, 7] |
| April 2027 | End of the grace period for “known and currently approved tools”, which must then use the official APIs. | Riot names none of those tools.[6] |
One secondary article dates the memory block to October 6, 2024. Riot's own page says 2026; this page follows Riot's page.
What “game memory access” means in plain words
A program can learn what is happening in a game in two ways. It can read the game's memory directly, the way cheats do, and see anything the game knows. Or it can ask through doors Riot built: the official Riot API on the web (ranks, match history, timelines), the League client's local interface on your PC (your lobby and champ select; Riot calls it “not officially supported for use with third party applications”), and the game's Live Client Data, the same numbers as the TAB scoreboard. The notice closes the first way for apps Riot doesn't know. The doors stay open, and Riot's Vanguard FAQ said the same thing two years earlier: “Overlays and internal tools using the API, game client, and in-game APIs should continue to function.”
Which apps used memory and which used the doors, their makers haven't said in our sources. That is why the table below has so many “none found” cells, and why what a companion app does matters more than what it runs on.
Sources: Riot Developer Docs: League of Legends; Riot: Vanguard FAQ for developers; Riot Support: Game Memory Access Removed for Third Party Apps (Sep 29, 2026)
Is your app affected? A two-minute check
Does the maker say how it reads the game?
Look for “official API”, “Live Client Data” or “client” on the app's own feature or FAQ page. A maker that reads memory rarely says so; one that doesn't usually does.Has it published a statement?
Search the app's blog, X account or Discord announcements for “October 6” or “memory”. The tracker below says what we found as of the check date.Did a feature vanish after October 6?
In-game numbers that the TAB scoreboard doesn't show, such as a live enemy gold total or cooldown tracking by observation, are the kind of thing memory access provides. If one disappeared around October 6, you have your answer; if nothing changed, the app most likely wasn't using memory, or is a tool Riot knows.
What each app has said
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| App | Public statement found |
|---|---|
| Porofessor | None found, checked October 30, 2026. Follow Porofessor's own update notes.[1] |
| Blitz | None found, checked October 30, 2026. Follow Blitz's own update notes.[2] |
| Mobalytics | None found, checked October 30, 2026. Follow Mobalytics's own update notes.[3] |
| OP.GG Desktop | None found, checked October 30, 2026. Follow OP.GG's own update notes.[4] |
| U.GG app | None found, checked October 30, 2026. Follow U.GG's own update notes.[5] |
| Overwolf | None found, checked October 30, 2026. Riot's notice doesn't name Overwolf or any platform.[6, 7] |
| iTero | None found, checked October 30, 2026. Follow iTero's own update notes.[8] |
| Hexgate | A blog post dated October 7, 2026 that explains the change (a rival app's reading, not Riot's). It reports no statement found from the other apps as of that date.[9] |
| LazyElo | This page. LazyElo has never read game memory: it uses the League client's local interface, the game's Live Client Data and Riot's web API through its own server. The notice changes nothing in how it works. It is not on any Riot list either, because Riot publishes none. |
Hexgate's post is a rival app's explainer, not a statement from Riot or about its own code. Where a maker publishes something, this table will quote it with the date.
My app stopped working. Is it this?
Maybe, and this page can't tell you from here. “Porofessor not working” is searched about 50 times a month in the US, with peaks around patches, long before October 2026; apps break for many reasons. Riot's advice: follow the developer's updates, and if a tool you rely on should qualify for the grace period, write to player support. Ours: check the maker's status page or Discord before you reinstall anything, and don't expect a fix from anyone but the maker. We make no promise about any app's future, and neither does Riot.
Sources: Riot Support: Game Memory Access Removed for Third Party Apps (Sep 29, 2026); porofessor.gg
What this does and doesn't mean for bans
It doesn't mean a ban wave: “This change does not result in bans by itself.” It doesn't change what Riot penalises either. The rules of February 2025 still apply: “Taking actions on your behalf (botting or scripting)”, “Drawing conclusions for you during gameplay”, “Exposing information that's intentionally obfuscated” and “Altering your field of intelligence (zoomhacks or global ult alerts)”. What it does mean is that an app which depended on memory may lose features or stop working, now if Riot doesn't know it, by April 2027 if it does. Whether can you get banned for League apps has a different answer per app is the umbrella page's job; for the two most-asked names there are what Overwolf actually does on your PC and the Porofessor safety page.
Sources: Riot Support: Game Memory Access Removed for Third Party Apps (Sep 29, 2026); Riot Support: Third-Party Applications (Feb 10, 2025)
LazyElo
It has never read game memory
Three sources only: the League client's local interface, the game's Live Client Data on your PC, and Riot's web API through our server. Nothing runs inside the game process.The notice changes nothing in how it works
No feature depended on memory, so none went away on October 6 and none has to move by April 2027.Not on any Riot list either
Riot publishes none, and the League client's local interface is “not officially supported” by Riot's own docs. LazyElo isn't endorsed by Riot Games; this page says what it uses instead of calling it approved.What it shows in game
The TAB scoreboard per lane and fixed ult cooldowns from the patch data, no timers: LoL overlay without Overwolf. How it compares with the other apps: the League apps compared.
Questions and answers
Did Riot ban third-party apps on October 6, 2026?
No. Riot started blocking game memory access by default for third-party apps it doesn't know. Apps that read the game through the official API, the League client's local interface or the game's Live Client Data were not the subject of the notice, and Riot writes that the change does not result in bans by itself. Some headlines read it as “Riot stops allowing third-party apps”; Riot's own page doesn't say that.
Source: Riot Support: Game Memory Access Removed for Third Party Apps (Sep 29, 2026)
Will I get banned for using a League app after the change?
Riot says the change “does not result in bans by itself”. Its ban rules are the same as before: no botting or scripting, no drawing conclusions for you during gameplay, no exposing hidden information, no altering your field of intelligence. An app that loses memory access may lose features or stop working; that is a different thing from a penalty on your account. This page makes no prediction about any app beyond what Riot wrote.
Sources: Riot Support: Game Memory Access Removed for Third Party Apps (Sep 29, 2026); Riot Support: Third-Party Applications (Feb 10, 2025)
What happens in April 2027?
The grace period ends. Riot's words: “For known and currently approved tools, we will have an extended grace period until April 2027, after which time, they will need to have switched to the official APIs”. Which tools are known and approved, Riot doesn't say, and it adds that it doesn't want to promise that any specific application will remain functional. Follow your app's own update notes as that date nears.
Source: Riot Support: Game Memory Access Removed for Third Party Apps (Sep 29, 2026)
Is Overwolf affected by Riot's memory block?
Riot's notice names no platform and no app, so Overwolf is neither named nor cleared. The block is about what an app reads, and an Overwolf app is judged by that like any other. Riot's Vanguard FAQ says overlays that use the API, the game client and in-game APIs should continue to function. We found no statement from Overwolf on the notice as of the check date.
Sources: Riot Support: Game Memory Access Removed for Third Party Apps (Sep 29, 2026); Riot: Vanguard FAQ for developers; overwolf.com
Are Porofessor, Blitz, Mobalytics, OP.GG and U.GG still allowed?
Riot has never named any of them, before or after October 6, and says it can't provide a full list of safe apps. As of the check date none of the five has published a statement on the notice that we found. What you can check yourself: whether a feature vanished after October 6, and what the maker's update notes say. The umbrella page on whether LoL apps are allowed goes through each app against Riot's rules.
Sources: Riot Support: Third-Party Applications (Feb 10, 2025); Riot Support: Game Memory Access Removed for Third Party Apps (Sep 29, 2026)
Why can't apps download other players' replays anymore?
Because Riot limited replay downloads to a player's own matches in the same patch cycle, 26.20, later reported as moved to 26.21, as part of the same anti-cheat work; third-party apps and sites lost replay download access. That is secondary reporting; the search snippets also mention a later developer post about a replay endpoint that needs player authorization, which we couldn't read in full. LazyElo doesn't download replays; its review uses Riot's match timeline, which is separate.
Source: Sheep Esports on the replay restrictions in patch 26.20, Oct 2026
Try a League app the notice didn't touch
LazyElo reads the client and the scoreboard, never the game's memory, and never clicks for you. Free for Windows 10 and 11, with no ads in any plan.
Free plan, no ads. For Windows 10 and 11.
Related
- Are LoL apps allowed?Riot's rules, app by app.
- Is Overwolf safe?Spyware, virus and ban questions.
- Is Porofessor safe?What Riot forbids and what Porofessor does.
- League apps without OverwolfTen apps: engine, ads, price, platform.
- Best League of Legends appsSix apps in one table.
- League companion appThe category explained.