Applebot-Extended: Apple's Robots.txt Token
What is Applebot-Extended?
Applebot-Extended is a robots.txt control token, not a crawler. It has no user-agent. It controls whether content Applebot already collected may be used to train Apple foundation models. Applebot-Extended never crawls anything, so it changes how Apple uses content Applebot already collected rather than whether Applebot visits.
Applebot-Extended has no user agent and will never appear in your logs. It is a robots.txt token only. It controls how content that a different, already permitted crawler collected may be used.
If a log line, analytics report or bot-detection tool claims a visit from Applebot-Extended, that record is wrong. Either the request is spoofed, or the tool is inventing a user agent that does not exist. Most published crawler directories get this wrong.
Key facts
- Applebot-Extended is operated by Apple, and its purpose is training: collects content that may be used to train future models.
- Applebot-Extended has no user agent and never appears in a server log, because Applebot-Extended is a robots.txt token and not a crawler.
- The robots.txt token for Applebot-Extended is Applebot-Extended, and Apple documents that Applebot-Extended respects that rule.
- Blocking is not what Applebot-Extended does: Applebot-Extended tells Apple how content that another crawler already collected may be used.
Specification
| Operator | Apple |
|---|---|
| Purpose | TrainingCollects content that may be used to train future models. Blocking it removes your content from future training runs. It does not affect whether a model can find and cite you today. |
| Agent kind | Control tokenA robots.txt token only. It has no user-agent and will never appear in your logs. It controls how content already collected by another crawler may be used. If this string shows up in your access log, treat it as spoofed. |
| User agent | None. This entry is a robots.txt token and has no user agent. |
| robots.txt token | Applebot-Extended |
| robots.txt compliance | Documented: respects robots.txt |
| Verification | No published method, user agent is the only signal |
| Sends referral traffic | No |
| Attaches a citation | No |
| Status | Active |
| Legacy Kymo category | training |
| Source | Operator documentationhttps://support.apple.com/en-us/119829 |
| Verified on |
What Applebot-Extended does not do
Applebot-Extended does not request anything, so it cannot appear in a log, in an analytics report or in a firewall rule.
Applebot-Extended does not stop Apple crawling your site, because a different token controls that.
Apple publishes no crawl frequency for Applebot-Extended, so any schedule you read elsewhere is somebody's estimate rather than a documented figure.
How Kymo classifies it
Kymo would file Applebot-Extended as training, and records nothing under it, because Applebot-Extended sends no request for anything to classify.
A log line claiming this token is spoofed, and Kymo flags it rather than counting it. So the number you see for Applebot-Extended on any Kymo dashboard is zero, and that is the correct number.
Allow it or block it
Disallowing Applebot-Extended opts you out of Apple Intelligence training while keeping Siri, Spotlight and Safari Suggestions inclusion intact. It cannot be detected in logs, so any log-analysis tool listing it as a detectable user agent is wrong.
| Allow it if | Block it if |
|---|---|
| You accept Apple using content it already collected for the purpose this token governs. | You want Apple to stop using your content for that purpose. Crawling itself continues, because a different token controls it. |
robots.txt directives
Both blocks below address Applebot-Extended only. Rules for one token never apply to another, even from the same operator.
Allow Applebot-Extended
User-agent: Applebot-Extended Allow: /
Block Applebot-Extended
User-agent: Applebot-Extended Disallow: /
Questions
How do I know a request claiming to be Applebot-Extended is genuine?
You cannot, and you never need to. Applebot-Extended has no user agent and makes no requests, so a log line naming Applebot-Extended is spoofed or comes from a tool inventing an agent that does not exist.
Does blocking Applebot-Extended also block Applebot?
No. Applebot-Extended and Applebot are separate tokens, and Apple treats each one on its own. A rule naming Applebot-Extended leaves Applebot free to carry on indexing your pages for Apple answers. To stop that as well, name Applebot in a rule of its own.
Will I see Applebot-Extended in Google Analytics?
No, and not in a server log either. Applebot-Extended has no user agent and makes no requests, so there is nothing for any tool to record.
Does Applebot-Extended send traffic back to my site?
No. Applebot-Extended makes no requests at all, so nothing about it can send you a visitor. What it governs is how Apple uses content another crawler already collected.
Related crawlers
All AI crawlers and control tokens
See this bot in your own logs
Applebot-Extended never appears in any log, so the question worth answering is which of Apple's real crawlers came instead.
Kymo reads the HTTP request on your server, so a crawler that never runs JavaScript is still recorded. You see which bots reached the site, which pages they took and how often, next to your human traffic.
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