Applebot
Apple operates Applebot, its web crawler. Apple says the crawled data powers search in Spotlight, Siri and Safari, and may also train Apple foundation models or supply context to AI output, each with its own opt-out. Applebot honors robots.txt under the Applebot token. Site owners verify it by reverse DNS within applebot.apple.com with forward confirmation, or against Apple's applebot.json ranges.
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)What Applebot does
Applebot presents a Safari-style user agent that ends with "(Applebot/0.1; +http://www.apple.com/go/applebot)", in desktop and iPhone variants, and Apple says it will occasionally update the advertised browser version. Apple documents that Applebot may render pages within a browser, so if robots.txt blocks JavaScript, CSS or XHR resources the page may not render properly. Crawl rate adjusts automatically when a site slows down or returns errors; Applebot does not follow Crawl-delay. Apple caches crawled content.
Apple describes three uses for the data. General search across Spotlight, Siri and Safari is controlled by the Applebot token; Applebot respects robots.txt directives targeted at it, and if the file mentions Googlebot but not Applebot it follows the Googlebot rules. Training Apple foundation models for Apple Intelligence, Services and Developer Tools is opted out separately through the Applebot-Extended token, and Apple states those rules are not considered in search ranking. Use as up-to-date context when AI models generate output for Apple products is opted out with a nosnippet meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header, or with schema.org isAccessibleForFree:false at page level.
Blocking the Applebot token removes a site from the search uses Apple lists. Allowing Applebot while adding Applebot-Extended rules and nosnippet keeps search visibility without contributing to model training or AI context, per Apple's wording. Applebot reads robots meta tags (noindex, nosnippet, nofollow, none, all) through meta name="robots" or meta name="applebot", and the X-Robots-Tag header. Section-level hasPart markup is not supported. Contact is applebot@apple.com.
Operator note. The user agent format is documented verbatim as Mozilla/5.0 (Device; OS_version) AppleWebKit/WebKit_version (KHTML, like Gecko)Version/Safari_version [Mobile/Mobile_version] Safari/WebKit_version (Applebot/Applebot_version; +http://www.apple.com/go/applebot), with a documented mobile example of Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 17_4_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.4.1 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1 (Applebot/0.1; +http://www.apple.com/go/applebot); Apple says it will occasionally update the advertised browser version, and the link in the user agent leads to Apple's Applebot support page at https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829. Apple states that 'Applebot respects standard robots.txt directives in general search crawls that are targeted at Applebot'; if robots.txt does not mention Applebot but mentions Googlebot, Applebot follows the Googlebot rules; it does not follow crawl-delay; crawl rate adjusts automatically when a site slows down or returns errors; and Apple caches crawled content. 'Applebot may render the content of your website within a browser', so blocking JavaScript, CSS or XHR resources in robots.txt may prevent proper rendering; Applebot supports the robots meta tags noindex, nosnippet, nofollow, none and all via <meta name="robots"> or <meta name="applebot">, the X-Robots-Tag HTTP header (for example 'X-Robots-Tag: applebot: nosnippet'), and page-level schema.org isAccessibleForFree:false (section-level hasPart markup is not supported) to exclude paywalled content from AI-generated context while staying eligible for search results. Site rules for Applebot-Extended are not considered in Search ranking, and the documented contact address is applebot@apple.com.
Controlling Applebot with robots.txt
Use the token Applebot in robots.txt. Apple documents that Applebot honors robots.txt directives.
User-agent: Applebot
Disallow: /User-agent: Applebot
Allow: /Verifying a request is really Applebot
Anyone can put Applebot in a User-Agent header. Apple documents two methods. Reverse DNS: the IP should resolve to a host within *.applebot.apple.com, and a forward lookup of that hostname should return the same IP (Apple's example: 17.58.101.179 resolves to 17-58-101-179.applebot.apple.com, which resolves back to 17.58.101.179). IP matching: compare the address against the CIDR prefixes published at https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json.
host <request-ip>
# expect a hostname ending in .applebot.apple.com
host <that-hostname>
# expect it to resolve back to <request-ip>Apple publishes a machine-readable list. Our probe read it on 2026-09-06; the file's own creation time was 2026-07-31.
- Prefixes
- 33
- IPv4
- 33
- IPv6
- 0
First entries at fetch time: 17.241.208.160/27, 17.241.193.160/27, 17.241.200.160/27
SHA-256 of the fetched body: b845bdfb29aae14da031eab82d7f366dd295f8ea4bc4ef5fe3ce850c94b779b8
Common questions
Should I block Applebot?
Blocking the Applebot token drops your pages from the search uses Apple lists, including Spotlight, Siri and Safari. If your concern is AI use rather than search, Apple documents narrower controls: an Applebot-Extended rule opts out of foundation model training, and a nosnippet directive or isAccessibleForFree:false opts out of AI-generated context, both while staying eligible for search.
Does Applebot run JavaScript?
Apple says Applebot "may render the content of your website within a browser". If robots.txt blocks the JavaScript, CSS or XHR resources a page needs, Apple warns the page may not render properly. Keep those resources crawlable if you want Applebot to see the rendered page.
How do I verify Applebot?
Apple documents two methods. Reverse-resolve the requesting IP and confirm the hostname sits under applebot.apple.com, then forward-resolve that hostname and check it returns the same IP; Apple's example is 17.58.101.179 to 17-58-101-179.applebot.apple.com and back. Or match the IP against the ipv4Prefix entries in https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json.
Sources
Every fact on this page was checked against Apple's own documentation, listed below, and re-checked by a second reviewer before publication. Reviewed September 2026.
Related crawlers
This registry documents how operators describe their own bots so site owners can identify and control them. It does not publish third-party IP lists or guess at undocumented behaviour. To see how your own site responds to automated visitors, the bot detection scanner reads a URL's live response and names the protection it finds.