AI crawler list · OpenAI · User-triggered fetcher

ChatGPT-User

Visits a page when a ChatGPT user or a custom GPT asks for it. It does not crawl automatically and does not decide eligibility for ChatGPT search.

Facts checked against OpenAI docs on Oct 20, 2026.

Operator

OpenAI

Used for

ChatGPT (user actions and GPT Actions)

Type

User-triggered fetcher

Obeys robots.txt

Not reliably

Is ChatGPT-User allowed on your site?

Reads your robots.txt and requests your page as each AI bot. Free, no signup.

Should you allow it?

Leave it allowed. A robots.txt rule for it has little effect anyway, and blocking it at the firewall breaks pages users share with ChatGPT.

If you block it: A robots.txt rule may not apply, OpenAI says. It has no effect on ChatGPT search eligibility.

OpenAI says robots.txt rules may not apply because these visits are user-initiated. To opt out of ChatGPT search, use OAI-SearchBot instead.

robots.txt rules

Allow ChatGPT-User

User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Allow: /

Block ChatGPT-User

User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /

Disallow ChatGPT-User from one folder only

User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /private/
Allow: /

Put each User-agent group in the robots.txt at your domain root. A bot follows the most specific group that names it and ignores the generic User-agent: * group, so repeat any shared Disallow lines inside it. Build a full file with the AI robots.txt generator.

This fetcher does not reliably follow robots.txt, so a Disallow rule may have little effect.

Same company, different bots: OpenAI

OpenAI uses separate user agents for separate jobs. Blocking one does not block the others.

Bot	Purpose	Obeys robots.txt	If you block it
`OAI-SearchBot` AI search index	ChatGPT search	Yes	Your pages stop appearing in ChatGPT search answers (they can still show up as navigational links).
`ChatGPT-User` User-triggered fetcher	ChatGPT (user actions and GPT Actions)	Not reliably	A robots.txt rule may not apply, OpenAI says. It has no effect on ChatGPT search eligibility.
`GPTBot` AI training crawler	OpenAI model training	Yes	Signals OpenAI not to use your content to train its foundation models. No effect on ChatGPT search.
`OAI-AdsBot` User-triggered fetcher	ChatGPT ads	Not documented	OpenAI's docs don't describe a robots.txt opt-out. It only visits pages submitted as ChatGPT ads, to review them.

Allow OpenAI search and user fetches, opt out of OpenAI training

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
User-agent: OAI-AdsBot
Allow: /

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

User agent string

Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; ChatGPT-User/1.0; +https://openai.com/bot

Versions in the string can change. Match on the token ChatGPT-User, and verify real traffic as shown below rather than trusting the header.

How to verify it's really ChatGPT-User

Find its requests in your server logs (the path to your access log depends on your host):

grep -i "ChatGPT-User" access.log

OpenAI publishes a separate IP list for each of its bots and recommends allowing requests from those ranges. It does not document a reverse DNS check.

Published IP list: openai.com/chatgpt-user.json

Check one IP against the list (prints True or False):

curl -s https://openai.com/chatgpt-user.json | python3 -c "import sys,re,ipaddress as a; ip=a.ip_address(sys.argv[1]); print(any(ip in a.ip_network(c,strict=False) for c in re.findall(r'[0-9a-fA-F:.]+/[0-9]+', sys.stdin.read())))" 203.0.113.7

Common mistakes

Disallowing ChatGPT-User to leave ChatGPT search. OpenAI says it is not used to decide whether content appears in search; use OAI-SearchBot for that.
Writing a User-agent: ChatGPT-User group and expecting your User-agent: * rules to still apply. A crawler follows only the most specific group that matches it and ignores the others, so repeat any shared Disallow lines inside the ChatGPT-User group.
Leaving a CDN or host "block AI bots" setting on and only checking robots.txt. Those settings block requests at the network edge. Cloudflare, for example, changed its defaults on September 15, 2026 for customers who did not opt out: bots it classifies as Training or Agent are blocked on pages that display ads, and multi-purpose crawlers that combine Search and Training are affected by the Training block.
Trusting the user agent header alone. Anyone can send "ChatGPT-User" in a request; verify the source IP as shown above before allowlisting or blocking.

FAQ

What is ChatGPT-User?

Visits a page when a ChatGPT user or a custom GPT asks for it. It does not crawl automatically and does not decide eligibility for ChatGPT search.

Does ChatGPT-User respect robots.txt?

Not reliably. OpenAI says user-requested fetches may not follow robots.txt.

What happens if I block ChatGPT-User?

A robots.txt rule may not apply, OpenAI says. It has no effect on ChatGPT search eligibility.

Should I block ChatGPT-User?

Leave it allowed. A robots.txt rule for it has little effect anyway, and blocking it at the firewall breaks pages users share with ChatGPT.

Is ChatGPT-User a crawler?

No. OpenAI says it is not used for crawling the web automatically. It visits a page when a ChatGPT user or a custom GPT asks a question that needs it, and for user interactions with external apps through GPT Actions.

How do I verify ChatGPT-User traffic?

Check the source IP against OpenAI's published list at openai.com/chatgpt-user.json. The user agent header alone can be faked.

Sources

Related AI crawlers

OAI-SearchBot · GPTBot · OAI-AdsBot · Claude-User · Perplexity-User · Google-CloudVertexBot · meta-externalfetcher · Amzn-User

Facts checked against OpenAI docs on Oct 20, 2026. Spot an error? rankroot.support@proton.me