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What is Applebot, and should you allow it?

Applebot is Apple's web crawler: its data powers search in Spotlight, Siri and Safari, and Apple says it may also help train Apple's foundation models. Allow it if you want to appear in Apple's search features, and disallow Applebot-Extended to refuse training. Without an Applebot group in robots.txt, Applebot follows your Googlebot rules.

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AI traffic · attensira.com30 days to 4 Oct 2026

0requests filed as Applebot · 30 days

of 143,601 AI crawler requests from 7 operators

Search engine crawlers on the board, beside attensira.com's rule for each
AgentAI requests, 30 daysattensira.com robots.txt
Applebot (this page)0Allowed
bingbot541Allowed
Googlebot189Allowed
Googlebot-Image0Parent's rule
Googlebot-Video0Parent's rule
GoogleOther0Allowed
GoogleOther-Image0Parent's rule
Kagibot0Wildcard
PetalBot0Wildcard

2 of 9 had requests filed in the window. User agents as sent, not checked against address lists.

Analyst agentAnalyst · reads the AI traffic boardAI traffic board, read over the Attensira MCP, and our live robots.txt · · n=143,601 AI requests
Karl-Gustav KallasmaaKarl-Gustav Kallasmaa, Founder & CEOLast updated

How do I allow or block Applebot in robots.txt?

Paste this into the robots.txt at the root of your domain. Beside it, the group attensira.com serves Applebot today.

robots.txt · for your sitepaste-ready
# Applebot feeds Spotlight, Siri and Safari search. Name# it explicitly: without an Applebot group it follows your# Googlebot rules.User-agent: ApplebotAllow: / # Apple's training opt-out. It sends no requests and does# not affect search results.User-agent: Applebot-ExtendedDisallow: /
Example · a group to paste, written for the token Applebot
attensira.com/robots.txtnamed · allowed
User-agent: ApplebotAllow: /Disallow: /api/
As served at attensira.com/robots.txt ·

We name Applebot and allow it everywhere except /api/, the same as every AI and search crawler we allow by name.

Read the whole file, or write yours with the robots.txt generator.

Who runs Applebot, and what is it for?

Apple runs it, and we file it under search indexing. Fills the index behind search in Spotlight, Siri and Safari. Apple says its data may also help train Apple's foundation models; Applebot-Extended is the separate token that refuses that use.

From Apple’s documentation, read . Why a training fetch and a search fetch are different decisions: the AI crawler guide.

Should you allow Applebot if you object to AI training?

Yes, and use the second token for the objection. Apple states that the data Applebot crawls powers features such as the search technology in Spotlight, Siri and Safari, and that it may also be used to help train Apple foundation models powering generative AI features across Apple products1.

So Applebot is one agent doing what most operators split across two crawlers: it is both the indexer behind Apple's search surfaces and the intake for Apple's model training. Apple's separation is not at the crawl but at the use. Applebot-Extended is a token that does not crawl; Apple says it is only used to determine how Applebot's data may be used, and that pages disallowing it can still be included in search results6.

The robots.txt block above is the "index me, do not train on me" configuration: Applebot allowed, Applebot-Extended disallowed. Blocking Applebot to stay out of Apple Intelligence would work, at the price of removing you from Spotlight, Siri and Safari suggestions.

Why does Applebot follow your Googlebot rules?

Because Apple says so, and Apple names Googlebot specifically. Apple states that Applebot respects standard robots.txt directives targeted at Applebot3, then adds that if robots instructions do not mention Applebot but mention Googlebot, the Apple robot will follow the Googlebot instructions4.

The consequences are not intuitive:

  • If you have no Applebot group, your Googlebot rules are your Apple rules.
  • A Googlebot Disallow written for a Search-specific reason, such as a staging path, a faceted-search trap or a section you de-indexed, is also removing you from Apple's search features.
  • Any later edit to your Googlebot group moves Apple's crawler too, and nothing in Search Console or anywhere else will tell you.

The fix is one line of intent. Write an explicit Applebot group, even if it says exactly what your Googlebot group says. That makes the two independent and makes the next person's edit safe.

How do I verify that a visit really came from Applebot?

A user-agent header is free text, so a log line naming Applebot is a claim until you check it.

Look up the visiting IP, confirm the hostname ends in one of the suffixes in the record, then look that hostname up and confirm it returns the same IP, or match the IP against the published ranges.

Apple documents both. Prefer the CIDR file, which is unambiguous and cheap to cache; fetched on 2026-09-03 it carried a creationTime of 2026-07-31, so it is maintained. Follow any reverse lookup with a forward lookup. A token sites allow without checking is a soft target for impersonation.

How do the Apple and Google crawler pairs compare?

  • Search crawler

    Apple
    Applebot (Spotlight, Siri, Safari)
    Google
    Googlebot (Search, Discover, Images, Video, News)

  • Training control

    Apple
    Applebot-Extended, sends no requests
    Google
    Google-Extended, sends no requests

  • Does the search crawler's data feed training?

    Apple
    Apple says it may
    Google
    Governed by Google-Extended

  • Unusual rule

    Apple
    Falls back to Googlebot rules
    Google
    None comparable

The two training tokens are compared in detail in Applebot-Extended vs Google-Extended. Both take ordinary path rules, so you can withhold one section, such as a subscriber archive, instead of the whole site.

VerificationApple
Reverse DNS ends in
*.applebot.apple.com
IP range file
applebot.json
Researcher agentResearcherTranscribed from Apple documentation ·

How should you match Applebot in logs?

Apple's published strings carry a full Safari preamble and end in (Applebot/0.1; +http://www.apple.com/go/applebot)2. There are two version numbers in there, Safari's and Applebot's, and Apple can change both. Match the bare token Applebot, case-insensitively, as a whole word. Make sure the matcher does not also count Applebot-Extended, which produces no traffic, in reports about traffic.

Why does Applebot matter for AI answers?

Because Apple's search features in Siri, Spotlight and Safari are powered by what Applebot crawls, and Apple says the same data may help train the models behind Apple Intelligence. For a site deciding about AI access, Applebot is both a visibility decision and a training decision, and Apple's two tokens let you make them separately.

What can Attensira show you about Applebot?

AI traffic, on Growth and Business, counts crawler fetches per operator and declared purpose at the edge. It reports user agents as sent, and the CIDR check stays yours. Attensira's daily answer readings cover ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews on every plan, plus Gemini on Growth and above; Apple's assistants are not among the engines read. See crawler logs and the robots.txt generator.

User-AgentApple
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.4 Safari/605.1.15 (Applebot/0.1; +http://www.apple.com/go/applebot)
Researcher agentResearcherTranscribed from Apple documentation ·

Should I allow Applebot in my situation?

Concrete cases, and what each one implies for this agent.

  • Your robots.txt has a Googlebot group and no Applebot group, and you assume Apple is crawling under the wildcard rules.

    Write an explicit Applebot group. Do not leave it to the fallback.

    Apple states that where robots instructions do not mention Applebot but do mention Googlebot, Applebot follows the Googlebot instructions. That means a Googlebot Disallow you wrote for a Search-specific reason is silently also an Apple rule, and any future change to your Googlebot group moves Apple's crawler with it. An explicit group makes the two independent.

  • You want out of Apple Intelligence training but you want to stay in Siri and Spotlight results.

    Allow Applebot. Disallow Applebot-Extended.

    Apple states that Applebot-Extended does not crawl webpages and that pages which disallow it can still be included in search results, because it only determines how data crawled by the Applebot user agent may be used. The two tokens are the two halves of the decision, and blocking Applebot would take the search half with it.

  • A burst of traffic identifying as Applebot is hitting a heavy section of your site.

    Verify against applebot.json or reverse DNS to applebot.apple.com before you rate-limit.

    Apple publishes both a CIDR list and a reverse-DNS domain precisely so that a claimed visit can be checked. The user-agent header is free text, and Apple's token is a good disguise because most sites allow it without thinking. If the address does not verify, robots.txt was never going to help you.

What else do people ask?

What is Applebot?
Applebot is Apple's web crawler. Apple states that its data powers features such as the search technology in Spotlight, Siri and Safari, and that it may also be used to help train Apple foundation models powering generative AI features across Apple products.
Should I allow Applebot?
Yes, if you want to appear in Spotlight, Siri and Safari search features. If you object to training use, keep Applebot allowed and disallow Applebot-Extended, Apple's separate token for that decision. Blocking Applebot itself removes you from Apple's search surfaces.
How do I stop Apple training on my content but stay in Siri and Spotlight?
Disallow Applebot-Extended and allow Applebot. Apple states that Applebot-Extended does not crawl, that it only determines how Applebot's data may be used, and that pages disallowing it can still be included in search results.

Where do these facts come from?

6 claims on this page, each with the page it was read from; last checked . The numbers in the text point here.

  1. Apple states that the data crawled by Applebot is used to power various features, such as the search technology integrated into many user experiences in Apple's ecosystem including Spotlight, Siri and Safari, and that it may also be used to help train Apple foundation models powering generative AI features across Apple products.

    support.apple.com · retrieved

    “The data crawled by Applebot is used to power various features, such as the search technology integrated into many user experiences in Apple's ecosystem including Spotlight, Siri, and Safari.”

  2. Apple documents Applebot's user agent in desktop and mobile forms, both carrying "(Applebot/0.1; +http://www.apple.com/go/applebot)" after a Safari-shaped preamble.

    support.apple.com · retrieved · changes often, check the source

  3. Apple states that Applebot respects standard robots.txt directives in general search crawls that are targeted at Applebot.

    support.apple.com · retrieved

    “Applebot respects standard robots.txt directives in general search crawls that are targeted at Applebot.”

  4. Apple states that if robots instructions do not mention Applebot but mention Googlebot, the Apple robot will follow Googlebot instructions.

    support.apple.com · retrieved

    “If robots instructions don't mention Applebot but mention Googlebot, the Apple robot will follow Googlebot instructions.”

  5. Apple states that traffic coming from Applebot is generally identified by using reverse DNS in the applebot.apple.com domain, and publishes the crawler's addresses as a CIDR list at search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json.

    support.apple.com · retrieved

    “Traffic coming from Applebot is generally identified by using reverse DNS in the *.applebot.apple.com domain.”

  6. Apple states that Applebot-Extended does not crawl webpages, that webpages which disallow Applebot-Extended can still be included in search results, and that it is only used to determine how to use the data crawled by the Applebot user agent.

    support.apple.com · retrieved

    “Applebot-Extended does not crawl webpages.”

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