Applebot-Extended: what it is and how to opt out of training
Applebot-Extended is a robots.txt token that lets publishers opt out of their content being used to train Apple's generative foundation models. It does not crawl pages itself. Apple states that blocking it does not stop Applebot from crawling or indexing, and its rules are not considered in Search ranking.
| Operator | Apple, for Apple foundation models |
|---|---|
| Purpose | AI training |
| robots.txt token | Applebot-Extended |
| User agent | No full string documented. Match on the robots.txt token. |
| Follows robots.txt | Yes. Applebot-Extended is a robots.txt token only; it does not crawl pages and only governs how Applebot-crawled data is used. |
| Runs JavaScript | Not documented |
| IP ranges | Not published |
| Documentation | Apple |
What Applebot-Extended does
Applebot-Extended is a secondary user agent token that lets publishers opt out of their content being used to train Apple's generative foundation models. It does not crawl webpages itself.
Should you block Applebot-Extended?
Block Applebot-Extended if you want to opt out of Apple model training while keeping Applebot search visibility. Apple says pages can still appear in search results, and that Applebot-Extended rules are not considered in Search ranking. Blocking it does not stop Applebot from crawling or indexing content.
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Allow: /Rules that apply
- Rule 02: Treat training bots and search bots as separate robots.txt decisions
- Rule 05: Don't use Google-Extended to control Search; it only governs Gemini training and grounding
Questions
Does blocking Applebot-Extended remove me from Siri or Spotlight?
No. Apple says pages can still appear in search results, and that Applebot-Extended rules are not considered in Search ranking. Blocking it does not stop Applebot from crawling or indexing content.
What is the Applebot-Extended user agent string?
Apple documents Applebot-Extended as a secondary user agent token for robots.txt, and it does not crawl webpages. No separate HTTP user agent string is published for it.
How do I opt out of Apple AI training?
Add User-agent: Applebot-Extended and Disallow: / to robots.txt. Apple says this opts your content out of training its general-purpose foundation models.
How do I keep content out of Apple's AI-generated answers?
Apple says the nosnippet meta tag excludes content from AI-generated answers, and isAccessibleForFree: false excludes paywalled pages from those answers.
Sources
- About Applebot · Apple, Sep 4, 2026
Checked against the operators' documentation every Monday. Last reviewed Nov 2, 2026.