Applebot user agent
Operated by Apple
Applebot is Apple's web crawler that powers search features in Siri, Spotlight and Safari.
The Applebot bot at a glance
- Applebot is operated by Apple and collects public web pages that may be used to train AI models, and indexes web pages so an AI search product can show and cite them in answers, and crawls web pages for a search engine index.
- The robots.txt token for Applebot is Applebot.
- Blocking a search engine crawler removes your pages from that search engine's results.
- Applebot robots.txt support: Yes.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Allow.
What is Applebot?
Applebot crawls pages for search and suggestions across Apple products, including Siri, Spotlight Suggestions and Safari.
Apple says data Applebot crawls may also help train Apple foundation models, unless the site disallows Applebot-Extended. If robots.txt has no Applebot rule, Applebot follows the rules written for Googlebot.
Should you block Applebot?
Allow Applebot unless it causes a measurable load problem.
| Effect on search rankings | Blocking a search engine crawler removes your pages from that search engine's results. |
|---|---|
| Effect on AI visibility | AI features built on that search index, such as Google AI Overviews and AI Mode on top of Googlebot, also lose access to your pages. |
| Follows robots.txt | Yes |
| Recommendation | Allow |
How to block or allow Applebot
Put the robots.txt rule in the file at the root of every domain and subdomain, for example https://example.com/robots.txt. The token Applebot is matched case-insensitively.
robots.txt: block
# Block Applebot
User-agent: Applebot
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow Applebot
User-agent: Applebot
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep Applebot out of private areas only
User-agent: Applebot
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to Applebot
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(Applebot)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to Applebot
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (Applebot) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "Applebot")How to verify real Applebot traffic
Apple publishes the IP ranges that Applebot uses. A request with the Applebot user agent from an IP outside that list is an impersonator.
Official Applebot IP list (JSON)
Reverse DNS check: look up the request IP, confirm the hostname ends in applebot.apple.com, then look up that hostname and confirm it returns the same IP.
# 1. Reverse lookup: the hostname must end in applebot.apple.com
host REQUEST_IP
# 2. Forward lookup: must return the same REQUEST_IP
host HOSTNAME_FROM_STEP_1How to find Applebot in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts Applebot requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "Applebot" access.log | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20For a full report per AI bot, upload the log to the AI Log File Analyzer, a free tool by Justin Hà.
Applebot user agent string
The full user agent Apple publishes for Applebot. Version numbers such as Chrome/W.X.Y.Z change over time, so match the token, not the whole string.
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.4 Safari/605.1.15 (Applebot/0.1; +http://www.apple.com/go/applebot)Applebot FAQ
Applebot identifies itself with the robots.txt token "Applebot". A typical request header reads: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.4 Safari/605.1.15 (Applebot/0.1; +http://www.apple.com/go/applebot)
Yes. Apple states that Applebot follows robots.txt rules written for the "Applebot" token.
Blocking a search engine crawler removes your pages from that search engine's results. AI features built on that search index, such as Google AI Overviews and AI Mode on top of Googlebot, also lose access to your pages.
Add two lines to the robots.txt file at the root of each domain and subdomain: "User-agent: Applebot" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Yes. Apple publishes the IP ranges Applebot uses. Check the request IP against that list; a matching user agent from any other IP is an impersonator.
Search your server access log for "Applebot", for example with: grep -i "Applebot" access.log. The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits per AI bot from an uploaded log file.
Sources: Apple crawler documentation. Last reviewed by Justin Hà.
See which of these bots actually reach your website
The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits from GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and other AI crawlers in your server log, for free. The GEO Technical Package sets up robots.txt, llms.txt and crawler access for AI search.
