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Anthropic / User fetch

What is Claude-User, and how do I block it?

Claude-User is Anthropic's user-triggered fetcher. Two lines in robots.txt block it, and Anthropic says it follows them. Checked October 29, 2026.

What is Claude-User?

Claude-User is Anthropic's user-triggered fetcher. A user-triggered fetcher runs when a person asks an AI product to open a page, not on a schedule.

OperatorAnthropic
Purpose (operator wording)user-triggered fetch
robots.txt tokenClaude-User
User agent stringNot stated by the operator
Respects robots.txtYes
IP rangeshttps://claude.com/crawling/bots.json
Last verified

What else should I know about Claude-User?

What is the Claude-User user agent string?

Anthropic does not publish a full user agent string for Claude-User. The robots.txt token to use is Claude-User. To tell whether a visit is real, compare the visitor's IP address with the published list.

How do I block Claude-User in robots.txt?

Add this group to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. It asks Claude-User to stay out of every page.

Block Claude-User
User-agent: Claude-User
Disallow: /

To allow it explicitly, for example while a broader rule blocks other bots:

Allow Claude-User
User-agent: Claude-User
Allow: /

How do I opt out of Anthropic training but stay in its search?

Each Anthropic user agent has its own token, so you can set them one by one. This file blocks ClaudeBot and allows Claude-User, Claude-SearchBot. Every line comes from the rows in this dataset. Whether allowing a bot keeps you in a product is Anthropic's call, so check each crawler's page.

Anthropic: block training, allow search and user fetch
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Claude-User
Allow: /

User-agent: Claude-SearchBot
Allow: /

Does blocking Claude-User affect AI answers?

Anthropic: disabling Claude-User 'prevents our system from retrieving your content in response to a user query, which may reduce your site's visibility for user-directed web search.'

Each other Anthropic user agent has its own robots.txt token, so a rule for Claude-User does not cover them. See the related crawlers below.

Does Claude-User follow robots.txt?

Yes. Anthropic: bots honor industry-standard robots.txt directives (statement covers all three bots).

Robots.txt is a request, not a lock (RFC 9309).

What IP addresses does Claude-User use?

Anthropic publishes a list at https://claude.com/crawling/bots.json. We did not download or parse it. A request that claims to be Claude-User but comes from outside that list is not Claude-User.

Which other Anthropic crawlers are there?

What should I read next?

Next: give AI tools something to quote

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