What is Applebot-Extended?
Applebot-Extended · Apple · Training crawler
Applebot-Extended is Apple's crawler. It collects content that may be used to train AI models. Controls use of your content for Apple foundation model training.
What it does
Applebot-Extended collects page content to be used in model training. Controls use of your content for Apple foundation model training.
It is a robots.txt usage-control token, not a crawler: it never requests a page, so it never appears in your logs. The operator's main crawler does the fetching.
Should you block Applebot-Extended?
It is a licensing decision, not a visibility one. Applebot-Extended collects content that may be used to train AI models; blocking it does not remove you from Google Search or from AI answer engines.
Your content is excluded from Apple foundation model training. Applebot itself continues to crawl for Siri and Spotlight, so your presence in Apple's search surfaces is unchanged.
To allow it
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Allow: /To block it
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /Put the rule in your robots.txt at the site root. A group that names Applebot-Extended explicitly takes precedence over your User-agent: * group, so naming it is how you make your intent survive later edits to the wildcard rules.
Verifying a real Applebot-Extended request
Like Google-Extended, this is a usage-control token rather than a distinct crawler. Applebot proper can be verified by reverse DNS to an Apple-controlled hostname and a matching forward lookup.
The mistake people make
Blocking Applebot rather than Applebot-Extended when the intent was to opt out of training. That removes you from Siri and Spotlight results, which is almost never what was wanted.
Frequently asked questions
- What is Applebot-Extended?
- Applebot-Extended is Apple's crawler. It collects content that may be used to train AI models. Controls use of your content for Apple foundation model training.
- Should I block Applebot-Extended?
- It is a licensing decision, not a visibility one. Applebot-Extended collects content that may be used to train AI models; blocking it does not remove you from Google Search or from AI answer engines.
- How do I block Applebot-Extended in robots.txt?
- Add a group to the robots.txt at your site root: "User-agent: Applebot-Extended" followed by "Disallow: /". Use "Allow: /" instead to allow it explicitly.
Further reading
- The Complete Guide to robots.txt for AI Crawlers: Which Bots to Allow
GPTBot vs OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot vs Claude-User, Googlebot vs Google-Extended: which AI crawlers to allow, which to block, and copy-ready robots.txt templates.
- How to Create and Optimize an llms.txt File for Your Website
The llms.txt format, where the file goes, how to keep it token-efficient, working examples for Next.js and static sites, and an honest account of who uses it.
- What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)? The Complete 2026 Guide
How ChatGPT Search, Perplexity and Claude find, read and cite pages, why that differs from Googlebot, and what the research says actually improves AI visibility.
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