What is Applebot-Extended?
Applebot-Extended is a control token, not a crawler run by Apple. Here is what Apple says it is for, and how to allow or block it.
What it is for
What Apple says: Control token, not a separate crawler. Applebot does the fetching. Blocking this name asks Apple not to use your content to train its AI models.
Control tokens are names you can use in robots.txt to say how your content may be used. The company's normal crawler does the fetching, so blocking the token does not stop that crawler visiting.
Is Applebot-Extended blocked on your site?
Free. Checks your robots.txt for Applebot-Extended and 13 other AI crawlers.
How to block Applebot-Extended
Add this group to the robots.txt file at the root of your site:
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /How to allow Applebot-Extended
If nothing in your robots.txt names Applebot-Extended and your User-agent: * group does not say Disallow: /, it is already allowed. If an older rule blocks it, remove that group, or say so explicitly:
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Allow: /robots.txt is a request, not a lock, and a "block AI bots" setting at your host or CDN can turn Applebot-Extended away whatever robots.txt says. More on writing the rules
Operators publish these names and change them. This page reflects what Apple has said publicly; check Apple's own documentation before you rely on it. See the full AI crawler list.