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# ChatGPT-User

> ChatGPT-User is an AI assistant fetcher run by OpenAI. It visits a page when a ChatGPT or Custom GPT user asks a question or uses a GPT Action. OpenAI says it does not crawl the web automatically and is not used to decide what appears in ChatGPT search.

- Operator: OpenAI
- Kind: AI assistant fetcher
- robots.txt token: none documented
- Follows robots.txt: partly
- Source: https://platform.openai.com/docs/bots (checked 2026-11-05)
- Page: https://invisit.dev/bots/chatgpt-user

## What is ChatGPT-User?

It visits a page when a ChatGPT or Custom GPT user asks a question or uses a GPT Action. OpenAI says it does not crawl the web automatically and is not used to decide what appears in ChatGPT search.

Fetches a page because a person asked an assistant about it, right now. Operators often say robots.txt does not apply to these user-triggered fetches.

OpenAI says that because these fetches are started by a user, robots.txt rules may not apply. To opt out of ChatGPT search, disallow OAI-SearchBot instead.

- [OpenAI’s documentation](https://platform.openai.com/docs/bots)

## ChatGPT-User user agent

OpenAI documents this user agent for ChatGPT-User. Version numbers in it change over time, so match on the name, not the whole string.

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

## Should you block ChatGPT-User?

Usually allow it. Each fetch is a person asking about your page right now, which is close to a visit. Blocking it in robots.txt may not stop it, since operators often treat these fetches as the person’s own.

## How to block ChatGPT-User in robots.txt

OpenAI documents no robots.txt token for ChatGPT-User that we could confirm, so we don’t suggest one here. Block it at your server or firewall by user agent instead.

- [Build a robots.txt for AI bots](https://invisit.dev/tools/robots-txt-generator)

## How to verify a request is really ChatGPT-User

Anyone can send any user agent, so the string alone proves nothing.

OpenAI publishes the IP ranges ChatGPT-User crawls from. A request that claims to be ChatGPT-User from any other address is not ChatGPT-User.

- [ChatGPT-User IP ranges](https://openai.com/chatgpt-user.json)

## See when ChatGPT-User reads your site

Bots don’t run JavaScript analytics, so a script tag never sees them. invisit records crawler reads on the server instead, through its server SDK or a Cloudflare Worker, and shows which bots read which pages, next to your visitors.

- [Track crawlers with invisit](https://invisit.dev/docs/server/sdk#crawler-reads)

## Common questions

### What is ChatGPT-User?

ChatGPT-User is an AI assistant fetcher run by OpenAI. It visits a page when a ChatGPT or Custom GPT user asks a question or uses a GPT Action. OpenAI says it does not crawl the web automatically and is not used to decide what appears in ChatGPT search.

### Is ChatGPT-User safe to block?

Usually allow it. Each fetch is a person asking about your page right now, which is close to a visit. Blocking it in robots.txt may not stop it, since operators often treat these fetches as the person’s own.

### How do I block ChatGPT-User?

OpenAI documents no robots.txt token for it that we could confirm, so block it at your server or firewall by its user agent.