Applebot-Extended: what it does, and what blocking it means
Apple's training opt-out. Blocking it keeps your content out of Apple foundation-model training and leaves Siri and Spotlight untouched.
| Operator | Apple |
|---|---|
| What it does | Model training |
| Obeys robots.txt | Yes, per its operator's docs |
| Governs | AI model training |
| Has a crawler | No. A robots.txt token only, nothing fetches under this name |
| Last verified | 2 September 2026 |
| Next review | 2 December 2026. We re-check every entry against the operator’s documentation each quarter. |
What happens if you block Applebot-Extended?
Blocking it affects
- Apple foundation-model training
It does not affect
- Siri, Spotlight and Safari search
Does blocking Applebot-Extended affect Siri or Spotlight?
A robots.txt token only. There is no separate crawler behind it, so nothing can fetch-test it.
It is the clean version of the split Google-Extended muddles: blocking it costs you no search visibility at all. Applebot governs whether Apple can find you; Applebot-Extended governs whether Apple can train on you.
How do you block or allow Applebot-Extended in robots.txt?
To block Applebot-Extended:
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /To allow it explicitly, use an Allow: / rule if your file has a blanket User-agent: * disallow:
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Allow: /With neither rule, Applebot-Extended is allowed by default.
Not sure how Applebot-Extended fits with the others? Build the whole file, or see which AI crawlers to allow.
How many sites block Applebot-Extended?
In our scan of the Tranco top 1,000 (1 to 2 October 2026, 499 sites measured), 8.6% disallowed Applebot-Extended in robots.txt. We read the rules for Applebot-Extended but did not request pages as it, so how many servers would refuse it is not measured.
Is your site blocking Applebot-Extended?
A CDN or bot-management rule can still block Applebot-Extended even when robots.txt says it is welcome. You cannot see that mismatch from the front of the site.
We request your robots.txt and homepage. We read your sitemap only when robots.txt hides pages from a crawler and we need to measure how much is affected. No other page.
Guides about Applebot-Extended
- Does Google-Extended block AI Overviews?
A common robots.txt mix-up, and the controls that actually decide what AI Overviews can quote.
Official sources
How is Applebot-Extended different from Apple’s other crawlers?
| Applebot-Extended | Applebot | |
|---|---|---|
| Its job | Model training | Search & training |
| Blocking it affects | Apple foundation-model training | Siri, Spotlight and Safari search; Apple Intelligence citations |
| Blocking it leaves alone | Siri, Spotlight and Safari search | Nothing else |
| Obeys robots.txt | Yes, per its operator's docs | Yes, per its operator's docs |
| Verifiable by IP | No, no published ranges | Yes, ranges are published |
| Last verified | 2 September 2026 | 2 September 2026 |
Which other crawlers do the same job as Applebot-Extended?
- GPTBot: Model training, run by OpenAI
- ClaudeBot: Model training, run by Anthropic
- Google-Extended: Model training, run by Google
- meta-externalagent: Model training, run by Meta
- Bytespider: Model training, run by ByteDance
- CCBot: Open training corpus, run by Common Crawl
- MistralAI-Training: Model training, run by Mistral