Applebot: user agent, IP ranges and robots.txt
Applebot is Apple's web crawler for search features such as Siri and Spotlight Suggestions. Apple says data it crawls may also be used to train Apple's foundation models, unless you opt out with Applebot-Extended.
- Operator
- Apple
- Type
- Search engine · Classic search crawler that also feeds AI Overviews or Copilot
- robots.txt token
Applebot- Follows robots.txt
- Yes
- Official docs
- support.apple.com
Applebot user agent
Desktop example
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)
Mobile example
Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 17_4_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.4.1 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1 (Applebot/0.1; +http://www.apple.com/go/applebot)
Device, OS and Safari versions vary. Match on "Applebot".
How to block or allow Applebot in robots.txt
Applebot respects robots.txt rules aimed at it. If your robots.txt doesn't mention Applebot but does mention Googlebot, Applebot follows the Googlebot rules. It ignores Crawl-delay.
Block Applebot
User-agent: Applebot Disallow: /
Allow Applebot
User-agent: Applebot Allow: /
Put the rules in /robots.txt at the root of each host. Check the result with our AI Crawler Checker, which also catches firewall and CDN blocks that robots.txt doesn't show.
Should you block Applebot?
Allow it if you want to appear in Siri and Spotlight. To opt out of Apple's AI training only, disallow Applebot-Extended instead.
How to verify real Applebot traffic
Reverse DNS on the IP should end in applebot.apple.com. Or match it against Apple's published list.
Loading the current list…
To check every request in your server log at once, use the free AI Bot Log Analyzer. It runs in your browser and flags requests that use a bot's name from outside its official IP list.
Frequently asked questions
What is Applebot?
Applebot is Apple's web crawler for search features such as Siri and Spotlight Suggestions. Apple says data it crawls may also be used to train Apple's foundation models, unless you opt out with Applebot-Extended.
How do I block Applebot?
Add "User-agent: Applebot" followed by "Disallow: /" to your robots.txt. To block only part of the site, disallow those paths instead of "/". Applebot respects robots.txt rules aimed at it. If your robots.txt doesn't mention Applebot but does mention Googlebot, Applebot follows the Googlebot rules. It ignores Crawl-delay.
Is a request claiming to be Applebot really from Apple?
Not necessarily: anyone can copy a user agent. Reverse DNS on the IP should end in applebot.apple.com. Or match it against Apple's published list.
Checked against Apple's documentation on 2026-11-06. Vendors change user agents and policies, so confirm in the official docs before relying on them.
Related crawlers
- Applebot-ExtendedApple · Training
- GooglebotGoogle · Search engine
- BingbotMicrosoft · Search engine
- Google-ExtendedGoogle · Training
- All AI crawlersThe full list with user agents and purposes.
The free AI Crawler Checker tests robots.txt and firewall rules for 14 AI crawlers in one run.