Model training · Apple
Applebot-Extended
A robots.txt token, not a crawler. Disallowing it tells Apple not to use content Applebot has crawled to train its foundation models, while still allowing Applebot for search features.
- Operator
- Apple
- Purpose
- Model training
- Used for
- Apple Intelligence and foundation models
- Obeys robots.txt
- Yes
- robots.txt token
Applebot-Extended- User-agent string
- Not published by the operator
- IP list
- Not published
- Official docs
- support.apple.com
Block Applebot-Extended in robots.txt
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /Well-known sites that block Applebot-Extended
facebook.com #4, fbcdn.net #7, instagram.com #14, whatsapp.net #42, whatsapp.com #66, msn.com #92, t-online.de #129, snapchat.com #157, tumblr.com #160, nytimes.com #163, ebay.com #191, cnn.com #195, theguardian.com #196, medium.com #198, bbc.com #216, sciencedirect.com #224, bbc.co.uk #236, canva.com #276, launchpad.net #281, reuters.com #283, nature.com #297, trustpilot.com #344, washingtonpost.com #383, bloomberg.com #386
Other Apple bots
Applebot (ai search index)
Questions
What is Applebot-Extended?
Applebot-Extended is a model training bot operated by Apple, used for Apple Intelligence and foundation models. A robots.txt token, not a crawler. Disallowing it tells Apple not to use content Applebot has crawled to train its foundation models, while still allowing Applebot for search features.
How do I block Applebot-Extended?
Add "User-agent: Applebot-Extended" followed by "Disallow: /" to the robots.txt file at the root of each host you want to protect.
Does Applebot-Extended respect robots.txt?
Yes. Apple documents that Applebot-Extended honours robots.txt directives.
How many websites block Applebot-Extended?
In a Oct 29, 2026 analysis of the top 10,000 websites by Kuldeep Paul, 14.7% of sites with a robots.txt file fully disallowed Applebot-Extended.
Analysis using this data
- Who blocks AI crawlers? What 10,000 robots.txt files revealPublishers block training, not answers; half of all blocklists leak; Cloudflare writes the most common AI policy.
- The opt-out asymmetry: you can block the small AI engines, not the big oneThe AI surfaces with the most users are the ones publishers can't refuse and can't measure.
How to cite this data
This dataset is free to use, including commercially, under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. The one rule is attribution:
- Credit the source as “Kuldeep Paul, kuldeep.cc” wherever you use a figure, chart or table from it.
- Link to this page (https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/crawlers/applebot-extended), not to the download file, so readers can check the source of every number.
- Include the date. These figures change; say “as of Oct 29, 2026” or link to the version you used.
- Mark changes. If you filter, recalculate or chart the data yourself, say so (“analysis based on data from…”).
- Cite the original source for single figures when you quote one reported number; it is linked in every row.
In running text: according to Kuldeep Paul's Applebot-Extended — AI crawler directory (kuldeep.cc). More in the methodology.
Paul, K. (2026). Applebot-Extended — AI crawler directory [Data set]. kuldeep.cc. https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/crawlers/applebot-extended
Paul, Kuldeep. "Applebot-Extended — AI crawler directory." kuldeep.cc, 29 October 2026, https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/crawlers/applebot-extended.
Paul, Kuldeep. 2026. "Applebot-Extended — AI crawler directory." Dataset. kuldeep.cc. Updated Oct 29, 2026. https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/crawlers/applebot-extended.
@misc{paul2026applebotextended, author = {Paul, Kuldeep}, title = {Applebot-Extended — AI crawler directory}, year = {2026}, howpublished = {\url{https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/crawlers/applebot-extended}}, note = {Dataset, CC BY 4.0, updated 2026-10-29} }
<a href="https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/crawlers/applebot-extended">Applebot-Extended — AI crawler directory</a> (data: Kuldeep Paul, kuldeep.cc)