Applebot: what it is, and how to allow or block it in robots.txt

Key point. Applebot is Apple's search engine crawler. Blocking it removes your pages from that search engine, including AI answers built on its index. It follows robots.txt.

Applebot at a glance

These are the facts our registry holds for Applebot, checked against Apple's documentation on October 14, 2026.

VendorApple
PurposeWeb search
TypeUser agent
Follows robots.txtYes; source: community ai.robots.txt list (commit 9ad8a47e)
Vendor documentationApple crawler page, checked October 14, 2026
Published IP rangessearch.developer.apple.com/applebot.json

What is Applebot?

Applebot is Apple's search engine crawler. Blocking it removes your pages from that search engine, including AI answers built on its index.

In Apple's own words (Apple's crawler documentation, read October 14, 2026):

  • “The data crawled by Applebot may also be used to help train Apple foundation models powering generative AI features across Apple products, including Apple Intelligence, Services, and Developer Tools.”

Apple uses other names for other jobs: Applebot-Extended (AI training). Each takes its own robots.txt group.

Does Applebot follow robots.txt?

Yes, Applebot follows robots.txt: our registry records this from the community ai.robots.txt list (commit 9ad8a47e).

What Apple says (Apple's crawler documentation, read October 14, 2026):

  • “Applebot respects standard robots.txt directives in general search crawls that are targeted at Applebot.”
  • “If robots instructions don't mention Applebot but mention Googlebot, the Apple robot will follow Googlebot instructions.”

A robots.txt rule records your request. It does not prove a crawler honours it, and firewall or CDN bot settings can refuse a crawler that robots.txt allows, so check those too.

How do I block Applebot in robots.txt?

Add a group that names Applebot and disallows the whole site:

User-agent: Applebot
Disallow: /

To keep it out of one folder only, disallow that path instead, for example Disallow: /private/.

One Apple-specific rule: “If robots instructions don't mention Applebot but mention Googlebot, the Apple robot will follow Googlebot instructions.” So if you block Googlebot and want Applebot in, give Applebot its own group.

How do I allow Applebot?

Applebot is allowed by default: if no group names it and no User-agent: * rule blocks it, it may read every page. A crawler obeys the most specific group that names it and falls back to User-agent: * only when no group names it (RFC 9309), so if a catch-all rule blocks crawlers, add a group for it:

User-agent: Applebot
Allow: /

Want the exact block for every AI crawler at once? Our robots.txt generator for AI crawlers writes it for each choice.

How can I tell if a request really comes from Applebot?

Match the request's IP address against Apple's published list, because user agents can be faked: https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json.

How often do startup websites block Applebot?

Our AI Crawler Access Report read the robots.txt files of 600 sampled startup websites on October 7, 2026. This is its row for Applebot, across the 569 sites whose answer it could read:

CrawlerTypeBlocked on at least one pathBlocked on all six pathsNamed in the file
ApplebotWeb search (reference)3 of 569 sites (0.5%; 95% interval 0.2% to 1.5%)0 of 569 sites (0%; 95% interval 0% to 0.7%)18 of 569 sites (3.2%; 95% interval 2.0% to 4.9%)

“Blocked” means the file disallows the crawler on at least one of six common paths (/, /pricing, /blog/, /docs/, /about, /product).

The report's headline figure, for the three AI search crawlers it tracked: “3 of 569 startup websites (0.5%; 95% interval 0.2% to 1.5%) block at least one AI search crawler (Elementera AI Crawler Access Report, October 2026).”

The figures describe that sample of Y Combinator-backed software companies on the day we fetched it. The method, the intervals and the full table are in the AI Crawler Access Report.

What the AI Crawler Access Report adds about Applebot:

One parsing detail affects Apple's names. Our checker, like many parsers, lets a group written for Applebot also govern Applebot-Extended when no group names Applebot-Extended directly. In our sample that rule decided the Applebot-Extended result on 5 of 569 sites.

How do I check whether my robots.txt blocks Applebot?

Read the group by hand: our free crawler checker covers 13 crawlers, and Applebot is not one of them yet.

  1. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt.
  2. Look for a User-agent: Applebot line. If there is one, only that group applies to Applebot.
  3. If there is none, the User-agent: * group applies.
  4. Within the group, the longest matching Allow or Disallow rule for a path wins.

Where can I see every AI crawler?

Our list of AI crawlers shows all 26 names in our registry, filtered by purpose. The same data is a free JSON download in our AI crawler registry.

Frequently asked questions

Three questions site owners ask about this name, each answered in one paragraph.

Should I block Applebot?

Almost never. Blocking it removes your pages from that search engine, including AI answers built on its index.

Does blocking Applebot affect other crawlers?

No. robots.txt groups are matched by name, so a group for Applebot applies only to Applebot. Apple's other names (Applebot-Extended) need their own groups.

How do I see whether Applebot visits my site?

Search your server or CDN logs for Applebot in the user agent. User agents can be faked, so check the request's IP address against Apple's published list: https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json

Work with us

There are two ways to work with us. Teams that want the work done for them can use our managed AEO services: Book a call. Teams that want to see where they stand first can start with Lenz, our free analysis of how ChatGPT and Gemini answer their buyers' questions: Get your free AI visibility report.

How this page was made

A script builds this page from our AI crawler registry, the vendor crawler pages we read on October 14, 2026, and, for the blocking figures, the AI Crawler Access Report. Every sentence in quotation marks was checked against the vendor's page that day. Soroush Mehri reviewed the page, and Mojtaba Ebadi approved it for publication.

Sources