BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) enables a brand's logo to appear next to emails in inboxes of supporting mail clients, provided the message passes email authentication checks.
BIMI is not an authentication mechanism itself—it relies on existing email authentication standards. To implement BIMI, your domain must have DMARC enforced with a policy of p=quarantine or p=reject (typically at pct=100), and all outgoing mail must pass SPF and DKIM validation. Only then will supporting mailbox providers display your logo.
You publish your logo by uploading an SVG image in the SVG Tiny Portable/Secure (SVG P/S) profile—a restricted SVG subset that prohibits scripts and external references for security. The logo location is then referenced in a BIMI record, typically a TXT record at a specific subdomain or via your DMARC infrastructure.
Key workflow:
- Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC with enforcement
- Create or prepare an SVG Tiny P/S logo file
- Publish the BIMI record
- Wait for mailbox providers to honour it (support varies)
BIMI is currently defined by an IETF Internet-Draft ("draft-brand-indicators-for-message-identification") rather than a final RFC. Major email providers like Gmail and Yahoo Mail support it, but adoption varies.
WarningBIMI is a visibility signal only. It does not prevent spoofing or guarantee message authentication—that depends entirely on SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Never rely on logo display as proof of legitimacy.