meta-externalagent: user agent, IP ranges and robots.txt

meta-externalagent crawls the web for uses such as training Meta's foundation AI models and improving products by indexing content directly.

Operator
Meta
Type
Training · Collects content to train future models
robots.txt token
meta-externalagent
Follows robots.txt
Yes
IP list
not published
Official docs
developers.facebook.com

meta-externalagent user agent

User agent

meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler)

Short form

meta-externalagent/1.1

How to block or allow meta-externalagent in robots.txt

Meta says to add a Disallow for it in robots.txt to block it. Meta may cache robots.txt for up to 24 hours.

Block meta-externalagent

User-agent: meta-externalagent
Disallow: /

Allow meta-externalagent

User-agent: meta-externalagent
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 meta-externalagent?

Block it if you don't want Meta training on your content. It isn't the crawler that builds link previews on Facebook and WhatsApp (that's facebookexternalhit), so blocking it doesn't break sharing.

How to verify real meta-externalagent traffic

Meta doesn't publish an IP list for this crawler, so a request using its name can't be verified from the IP.

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 meta-externalagent?

meta-externalagent crawls the web for uses such as training Meta's foundation AI models and improving products by indexing content directly.

How do I block meta-externalagent?

Add "User-agent: meta-externalagent" followed by "Disallow: /" to your robots.txt. To block only part of the site, disallow those paths instead of "/". Meta says to add a Disallow for it in robots.txt to block it. Meta may cache robots.txt for up to 24 hours.

Is a request claiming to be meta-externalagent really from Meta?

You can't be sure. Meta doesn't publish an IP list for this crawler, so a request using its name can't be verified from the IP. Treat the user agent as a claim, not proof.

Checked against Meta's documentation on 2026-11-06. Vendors change user agents and policies, so confirm in the official docs before relying on them.

Related crawlers

Is meta-externalagent allowed on your site?

The free AI Crawler Checker tests robots.txt and firewall rules for 14 AI crawlers in one run.

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