Applebot-Extended: robots token, verification and how to allow or disallow it
Applebot-Extended is an AI crawler operated by Apple. Its robots.txt token is Applebot-Extended, and the vendor documentation we fetched on 2026-09-06 is the source for every statement on this page.
| Robots token | Applebot-Extended |
|---|---|
| Vendor | Apple |
| Purpose | training corpus |
| Documented verification | reverse DNS |
| Vendor documentation last verified | 2026-09-06 |
| Share of read domains disallowing it for / | 16.4% of 128 |
| Last verified |
Identity
| Robots token | Applebot-Extended |
|---|---|
| Matched as | applebot-extended |
| Vendor | Apple |
| Purpose | training corpus |
| Documentation | https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829 |
| Documented verification | reverse DNS (.applebot.apple.com) |
probe_supported is false on the vendor's own evidence: 'Applebot-Extended does not crawl webpages.' It is a robots.txt control token over the use of already crawled content in Apple generative models. Reverse DNS suffix is the one app/botverify.py forward confirms.
Allow or disallow it
User-agent: Applebot-Extended Allow: /
User-agent: Applebot-Extended Disallow: /
A robots.txt rule is a request that a well behaved crawler honours. It is not an access control, and this page does not tell anyone what to choose.
Questions
Does Applebot-Extended obey robots.txt?
The vendor documentation at https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829 states that Applebot-Extended respects robots.txt. We fetched that page and it answered our checker on 2026-09-06. This records what the vendor documents, not what any individual request did.
How do I allow Applebot-Extended in robots.txt?
Add this group to the robots.txt at the root of the host: User-agent: Applebot-Extended Allow: /. The token is matched case insensitively as a substring of the user agent by RFC 9309, and the longest matching rule wins.
How do I disallow Applebot-Extended in robots.txt?
Add this group to the robots.txt at the root of the host: User-agent: Applebot-Extended Disallow: /. A robots.txt rule is a request that a well behaved crawler honours; it is not an access control.
How do I verify a request really came from Applebot-Extended?
The vendor documents reverse DNS verification: look up the address of the request, check the name ends in .applebot.apple.com, then look that name up again and confirm it resolves back to the same address.
What we measure
Of the 128 seeded domains whose robots.txt we have read, 21 disallow Applebot-Extended for / and 107 allow it, which is 16.4% disallowed, week 2026-W37. Counts only: no domain is named.
The weekly AI crawler access index
Sources
| Source | Type | HTTP | Verified | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829 | vendor | 200 | 2026-09-06 | 13 occurrences of Applebot-Extended in the fetched body |
| https://darkvisitors.com/agents/applebot-extended | aggregator | 200 | 2026-09-06 | corroboration only; volatile source: identical byte count but a different content hash on every fetch (verified twice on 2026-09-06), so the refresher compares byte counts for it, not hashes |
Free data
Check a domain against every token
AEO Watch is an independent, factual monitor. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or speaking for any crawler vendor. Every statement is an observation with the date it was made and the raw evidence behind it: a robots.txt line, an HTTP status code, a header. There are no scores, no grades and no verdicts here, and nothing on this page is advice. A site opts out at any time and the opt out is honoured automatically and permanently.