Applebot-Extended
Applebot-Extended is a bot operated by Apple that collects pages used to train AI models. Apple has a secondary user agent, Applebot-Extended ... The name never appears in a User-Agent header: it is a robots.txt directive only, so there is nothing to verify at request time.
Applebot-Extended at a glance
| User agent | Applebot-ExtendedToken only. The operator has not published a full user-agent string, so match on the substring rather than an exact header. |
|---|---|
| Operator | Apple |
| Purpose | Powers features in Siri, Spotlight, Safari, Apple Intelligence, and others. |
| Respects robots.txt | Yes, documented |
| Verification method | Not applicable, robots.txt token only Applebot-Extended is never sent as a User-Agent. It is a robots.txt token that tells Apple not to use already-crawled pages for Apple Intelligence training, while Applebot keeps crawling for Siri and Spotlight. https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829 |
| Crawl pattern | Not published |
| Robots.txt tokens | Applebot-Extended |
| Operator documentation | https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829 |
Apple has a secondary user agent, Applebot-Extended ... [that is] used to train Apple's foundation models powering generative AI features across Apple products, including Apple Intelligence, Services, and Developer Tools.
Allow or block Applebot-Extended
Paste one of these into the robots.txt file at the root of your domain. Rules are per token, so a block on one crawler leaves every other bot untouched.
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /Blocks every path for this crawler only.
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Allow: /Explicit allow. Useful when a wildcard rule above it would otherwise catch this crawler.
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Allow: /
Disallow: /account/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /searchEdit the Disallow paths to match your own account, checkout and search URLs.
What blocking actually costs you
Blocking Applebot-Extended keeps your pages out of the next training run. It does not remove anything already collected, and it has no effect on how the site ranks in ordinary search.
Block every crawler in the directory at onceIs that really Applebot-Extended?
A user-agent header is a string the client chooses. Scrapers copy Applebot-Extended precisely because site owners allow it. Applebot-Extended is never sent as a User-Agent. It is a robots.txt token that tells Apple not to use already-crawled pages for Apple Intelligence training, while Applebot keeps crawling for Siri and Spotlight.
Paste the IP address from your access log below. You will see whether it belongs to a hosting provider, a residential proxy pool or a Tor exit, plus the ASN that announces it, which is what tells you whether the claim holds up.
Other crawlers run by Apple
Related crawlers
Identify crawlers automatically instead of by hand
Agentscan checks a request against published crawler ranges, reverse DNS and hosting data, then returns a verdict your edge can act on. One call per request, no range files to keep up to date.