What is BIMI?
BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) lets your brand logo appear next to your messages in supporting inboxes. It is not a security control on its own; it is a reward for getting email authentication right. A BIMI logo only shows once your domain is protected by a strong DMARC policy, which makes it both a trust signal for recipients and an incentive to finish your DMARC rollout.
What BIMI is
BIMI, short for Brand Indicators for Message Identification, is a standard that displays your verified brand logo alongside your emails in the recipient's inbox. Instead of a generic placeholder or the first letter of your sender name, supporting providers show your actual logo, making your messages easier to recognize and harder to convincingly impersonate.
Crucially, BIMI is built on top of email authentication rather than replacing it. The logo is a visible payoff for having locked your domain down with SPF, DKIM, and an enforced DMARC policy.
How it works
BIMI is published as a single TXT record at default._bimi.yourdomain. The record points to the location of your logo and, optionally, to a certificate proving you own it:
v=BIMI1— the required version tag.l— the HTTPS URL of your logo, which must be an SVG Tiny PS file (a restricted SVG profile).a— an optional URL to your Verified Mark Certificate.
When a supporting provider receives an authenticated message from your domain, it looks up this record, fetches the logo, and displays it next to your message.
Requirements
BIMI has strict prerequisites, and missing any one of them means no logo appears:
- An enforced DMARC policy. Your domain must publish DMARC at
p=quarantineorp=reject. A policy ofp=nonewill never display a BIMI logo. - A compliant logo. The logo must be a square SVG in the SVG Tiny PS profile, hosted over HTTPS.
- A Verified Mark Certificate, for some providers. Inboxes such as Gmail and Apple Mail require a VMC, which proves your organization holds a registered trademark on the logo.
Setup overview
- Reach DMARC enforcement first. Confirm your DMARC policy is at
quarantineorreject; nothing else matters until it is. - Prepare the logo. Convert your logo to a square SVG Tiny PS file and host it on an HTTPS URL.
- Obtain a VMC if needed. If you target Gmail or Apple Mail, buy a Verified Mark Certificate from an authorized issuer; it requires a registered trademark.
- Publish the record. Add the BIMI TXT record at
default._bimi.yourdomainpointing to the logo and certificate.
Benefits and limitations
The upside of BIMI is brand recognition and trust: a logo next to your message reassures recipients that the mail is genuinely from you, and it can lift engagement. Because it is gated behind enforced DMARC, it also gives marketing teams a concrete reason to support the authentication work.
The limitations are real, though. Support varies by mailbox provider, the SVG Tiny PS and VMC requirements add cost and effort, and the logo only appears for mail that authenticates. BIMI is best understood as the finishing touch after authentication, not a starting point. If you are still working out the layers, read SPF vs DKIM vs DMARC first.