AI crawler index

What is Applebot?

Applebot is Apple's search engine crawler. Powers search in Spotlight, Siri and Safari; Apple says its data may also train Apple's foundation models.

At a glance

OperatorApple
PurposeSearch engine
User agent 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)
Obeys robots.txtYes, according to the operator
Published IP ranges https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json
How to verify it Reverse DNS in the *.applebot.apple.com domain, or match the source IP against Apple's list.
Official documentation https://support.apple.com/en-us/119829

Should you block Applebot?

It is a classic search engine crawler. Blocking it removes you from that search engine and from the products built on its index, so most sites should allow it.

If robots.txt does not name Applebot, it follows the rules you set for Googlebot. It ignores Crawl-delay. To keep content out of model training, use Applebot-Extended instead.

How to block or allow Applebot in robots.txt

Block it everywhere:

User-agent: Applebot
Disallow: /

Allow it everywhere:

User-agent: Applebot
Allow: /

Rules are matched by the token on the User-agent line. Test the result with the robots.txt tester before you publish it.

How to verify that a visit is really Applebot

Anyone can write Applebot in a user agent, so the user agent alone proves nothing. Take the IP address of the request from your server logs and check it.

Look up the hostname of the IP, then look up that hostname. The first answer must end in .applebot.apple.com, and the second must return the same IP; anything else is an impostor. On Windows, use nslookup instead of host.

host 203.0.113.7
host <hostname>

Apple publishes its IP ranges as JSON. This command downloads the list and prints True if the IP is in it. Replace 203.0.113.7 with the IP from your logs; Python 3 comes with macOS and most Linux systems.

curl -s https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json \
  | python3 -c 'import sys, json, ipaddress as ip
a = ip.ip_address(sys.argv[1])
ranges = json.load(sys.stdin)["prefixes"]
print(any(a in ip.ip_network(r.get("ipv4Prefix") or r.get("ipv6Prefix")) for r in ranges))' 203.0.113.7

Other Apple crawlers

Check your own site

The AI crawler checker tells you which AI crawlers your robots.txt lets in, and the log file analyzer shows how often each one actually visits. For the bigger picture, see what AI crawlers are and the full AI crawler index.

What our data says about Applebot

Figures we measured on real AI answers and websites. Each one links to its study, with the method, the sample and the date.

  • 2.9%

    2.9% of the websites AI cites most in Spain block Applebot from crawling their site, and 3.9% name it in a robots.txt group of its own.
    Sample: 382 websites AI cites for three or more of 43 brands in Spain. Source: Mencoro (October 2026), in Which AI crawlers do the websites AI cites let in?

FAQ

Applebot questions

Applebot is Apple's search engine crawler. Powers search in Spotlight, Siri and Safari; Apple says its data may also train Apple's foundation models.
Yes. Apple says Applebot follows robots.txt rules, so a Disallow rule for its token stops it.
Add "User-agent: Applebot" followed by "Disallow: /" to your robots.txt. If robots.txt does not name Applebot, it follows the rules you set for Googlebot. It ignores Crawl-delay. To keep content out of model training, use Applebot-Extended instead.
Do a reverse DNS lookup of the IP: the hostname must end in .applebot.apple.com, and a forward lookup of that hostname must return the same IP. Check that the IP is in the list Apple publishes at https://search.developer.apple.com/applebot.json.

Start tracking your brand in AI search today

Monitor how AI engines cite your brand, track keyword positions, and benchmark against competitors, all in one platform.