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BIMI — Brand Indicators for Message Identification

BIMI is an email standard that displays your brand logo next to your messages in supported mail clients. Gmail and Apple Mail both support it. The prerequisite is a domain at DMARC enforcement — which means it's only reachable after you've done the work.

6 min read · Updated June 2026

What BIMI does

BIMI lets you publish your brand logo in DNS. When a receiving mail client that supports BIMI (Gmail, Apple Mail, Yahoo Mail, and others) receives a message from your domain, it fetches your logo from the URL in your BIMI record and displays it in the inbox alongside the message.

For the recipient, this means a familiar logo instead of a generic initial or avatar. For the sender, it's a visible trust signal — and because BIMI requires DMARC enforcement, the logo is a meaningful indicator that the message is authenticated.

Requirements

To use BIMI, your domain must meet these conditions:

  • DMARC at p=quarantine or p=reject. BIMI is not available at p=none. The policy must be enforcing.
  • SPF and DKIM must be passing with alignment. BIMI is only meaningful when authentication is solid.
  • A square SVG logo. The BIMI specification requires an SVG image in a specific profile (SVG Tiny PS). Standard SVGs exported from design tools usually need to be converted.
  • The logo must be hosted at a public HTTPS URL.
  • For Gmail: a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC). Gmail requires a VMC, which ties your logo to your registered trademark through a Certificate Authority. Apple Mail does not require a VMC for basic display, but does for the verified checkmark.

The BIMI DNS record

A BIMI record is a TXT record published at default._bimi.yourdomain.com:

default._bimi.yourdomain.com TXT "v=BIMI1; l=https://yourdomain.com/logo.svg"

With a VMC:

default._bimi.yourdomain.com TXT "v=BIMI1; l=https://yourdomain.com/logo.svg; a=https://yourdomain.com/vmc.pem"

The l= field is the URL to your SVG logo. The a= field is the URL to your VMC certificate in PEM format.

Getting the SVG right

BIMI requires SVG Tiny PS, a restricted subset of SVG. Most SVGs exported from tools like Illustrator or Figma need to be converted. Key requirements:

  • Must be square (equal width and height)
  • Must have a solid background (transparent background is not allowed)
  • No JavaScript, no external references, no animations
  • Must include specific SVG metadata

Several online tools can convert a standard SVG to BIMI-compliant SVG Tiny PS. Validate the file with a BIMI inspector before publishing.

Verified Mark Certificates (VMC)

A VMC is an X.509 certificate issued by a Certificate Authority (DigiCert and Entrust are the current approved CAs) that ties your logo to your trademark registration. It proves to Gmail and other strict implementations that you own the mark.

Obtaining a VMC requires:

  • A registered trademark in the jurisdictions you want covered
  • A vetted process with the CA, similar to getting an EV certificate
  • Annual renewal
  • Cost is typically several hundred dollars per year

If you don't have a VMC, BIMI will still display your logo in some clients (Yahoo Mail, Apple Mail in some configurations), but not in Gmail.

Testing BIMI

After publishing your BIMI record, send a test message to a Gmail account and check the inbox. If BIMI is working, your logo will appear next to the message. Use a BIMI inspection tool to validate your DNS record, SVG file, and VMC before troubleshooting delivery.

BIMI requires your DMARC record to be enforcing. If you haven't reached p=quarantine or p=reject, start with the enforcement path first.

BIMI starts with DMARC enforcement. dmarcdemon shows your current enforcement level and tracks your path to p=reject — the prerequisite for BIMI support in Gmail.
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