Rattlesnakes By Mail

Applebot-Extended vs Claude-User

Applebot-Extended and Claude-User compared on 12 documented fields, from 18 claims, last verified 2026-09-13.

FieldApplebot-ExtendedClaude-UserComparison
cites_sourcesnot documentednot_documenteddifferent
honours_crawl_delayn/ayesdifferent
publishes_ip_listnoyesdifferent
purpose_documentedpolicy_onlyuser_fetchdifferent
reads_llms_txtnot documentednot_documenteddifferent
respects_robots_txtn/ayesdifferent
robots_token_differs_from_uayesnot documenteddifferent
separate_search_and_training_tokensyesnot_documenteddifferent
user_agent_string_fullnot documentednot_documenteddifferent
user_fetch_exception_documentednot documentednodifferent
verifiable_by_rdnsn/anot_documenteddifferent
what_it_controlsAI training use of content, not search indexingnot documenteddifferent

Differences

FieldApplebot-Extended statementClaude-User statement
cites_sourcesnot documentedAnthropic does not publish whether Claude responses cite pages fetched by Claude-User.
honours_crawl_delayApple does not publish a Crawl-delay behaviour for Applebot-Extended.Claude-User respects the Crawl-delay directive in robots.txt when fetching pages.
publishes_ip_listApple publishes no IP list specific to Applebot-Extended and documents one shared crawl identity for Applebot.Anthropic publishes the IP address ranges used by Claude-User as a JSON file at https://claude.com/crawling/bots.json.
purpose_documentedApplebot-Extended controls whether website content is used to train Apple general purpose foundation models.Claude-User accesses websites in response to questions that individual users ask Claude.
reads_llms_txtnot documentedAnthropic does not publish whether Claude-User reads llms.txt files.
respects_robots_txtApplebot-Extended is a robots.txt token that publishers disallow to opt out of generative model training.Claude-User honours industry standard robots.txt directives that signal do not crawl.
robots_token_differs_from_uaApplebot-Extended is a robots.txt control token and does not correspond to a separate crawler user agent string.not documented
separate_search_and_training_tokensWebpages that disallow Applebot-Extended remain eligible for inclusion in Apple search results.Anthropic does not document Claude-User as a search or training opt-out token.
user_agent_string_fullnot documentedAnthropic does not publish a full user agent string for Claude-User.
user_fetch_exception_documentednot documentedAnthropic applies the same robots.txt statement to Claude-User as to ClaudeBot and Claude-SearchBot and documents no exception for user-initiated fetches.
verifiable_by_rdnsApple does not publish a reverse-DNS verification method specific to Applebot-Extended.Anthropic does not publish a reverse-DNS verification method for Claude-User.
what_it_controlsApplebot-Extended controls the AI training use of crawled content and does not control search indexing.not documented

Sources