Apple · Model training
Applebot-Extended: Apple's AI training opt-out, and its limits
Applebot-Extended is a robots.txt token Apple uses to let publishers opt out of their content, crawled by Applebot, training Apple's general-purpose foundation models for Apple Intelligence, Services and Developer Tools. It does not crawl; every request still comes from Applebot. Pages that disallow it can still appear in Apple search results, and it does not cover AI-generated answers in Siri and Search, for which Apple points to the nosnippet meta tag.
- robots.txt token
Applebot-Extended- User agent
- None: a robots.txt token only, it never visits on its own
- Operator
- Apple
- Type
- Model training
- What it feeds
- Decides whether Applebot-crawled content may train Apple's general-purpose foundation models powering generative AI in Apple Intelligence, Services and Developer Tools.
- Follows robots.txt
- Yes. It is a robots.txt control only: Apple says "Applebot-Extended does not crawl webpages" and is used to decide how data crawled by Applebot may be used.
- How to verify it
- Not applicable: it does not crawl. Fetches are made by Applebot, verified by reverse DNS to applebot.apple.com or Apple's published IP ranges. (list)
Should you block Applebot-Extended?
Disallowing Applebot-Extended opts your content out of Apple's foundation-model training, and Apple says such pages "can still be included in search results." It does not stop Applebot crawling, and it does not keep content out of AI-generated world-knowledge answers in Siri and Search; add nosnippet for that.
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Allow: /
Add these lines to /robots.txt at your site root. A group naming Applebot-Extended replaces your User-agent: * rules for it, so repeat any paths you also want it to skip.
Live check
Is Applebot-Extended allowed on your site?
Applebot-Extended and Applebot
Apple runs one crawler. Applebot-Extended is a label on how its output may be used:
| Token or tag | Sends requests? | What it controls |
|---|---|---|
| Applebot | Yes | Crawling for Spotlight, Siri and Safari search, which also supplies AI training and AI answers |
| Applebot-Extended | No | Whether that crawled data may train Apple's general-purpose foundation models |
| nosnippet meta tag | No | Whether content is used as context for AI-generated answers in Apple products |
Apple describes Applebot-Extended as "a secondary user agent" that gives publishers "additional controls over how their website content can be used by Apple," and says plainly that it "does not crawl webpages."
What disallowing it covers, and what it doesn't
Covers: training of Apple's general-purpose foundation models that power generative AI features across Apple Intelligence, Services and Developer Tools.
Doesn't cover:
- Search. Pages that disallow Applebot-Extended can still be included in search results.
- Crawling. Applebot keeps fetching your pages under whatever Applebot rules you have.
- AI-generated answers. Apple says Applebot data may provide context when AI models generate output in Apple products, such as broad world-knowledge answers in Siri and Search with links to sources. The opt-out for that is
nosnippet, applied to specific content, not Applebot-Extended.
So a publisher who wants Apple search traffic but no part in Apple's AI has two steps: disallow Applebot-Extended, and add nosnippet where it matters. Even then, Apple notes, Applebot may still crawl and your content stays discoverable.
How to set it
Apple's example disallows a single directory:
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /private/
For a full training opt-out, use Disallow: /. Put the group in /robots.txt at the root of each host. Your Applebot group (or, if you have none, your Googlebot group, which Applebot falls back to) still governs crawling.
For the AI-answers side, use the robots meta tag:
<meta name="robots" content="nosnippet">
Apple also accepts meta name="applebot" and the header X-Robots-Tag: applebot: nosnippet for files like PDFs. Note that nosnippet also stops Applebot generating a description or web answer, so suggestions show only the page title.
Verifying
There is no Applebot-Extended traffic to verify. Verify the Applebot requests instead, by reverse DNS in the applebot.apple.com domain or against Apple's CIDR list. The robots.txt checker shows whether your file names Applebot-Extended.
Questions
- Will disallowing Applebot-Extended remove me from Siri or Spotlight?
- No. Apple says webpages that disallow Applebot-Extended can still be included in search results, and your content stays discoverable through Spotlight, Siri and Safari.
- Does Applebot-Extended stop Siri using my pages in AI answers?
- No. Apple handles that separately: to keep content out of broad world-knowledge answers generated by AI in Siri and Search, apply the nosnippet meta tag to that content.
- Why does Applebot-Extended never appear in my logs?
- Because it doesn't crawl. Apple calls it a secondary user agent but says it only determines how data crawled by the Applebot user agent may be used. The requests you see are Applebot's.
- Does Applebot-Extended fall back to Google-Extended rules?
- Apple doesn't say. Its documented fallback is that Applebot follows Googlebot rules when Applebot isn't named; nothing on Apple's page links Applebot-Extended to Google-Extended, so name it explicitly.
Related crawlers
Sources
Checked against these pages on 2026-10-18. Operators change their crawlers; check the source before relying on a detail.