bimi-missing
BIMI not configured
BIMI puts your verified company logo next to your name in the inbox at Gmail, Apple Mail and others. It's a brand-protection feature that only works once your other email-protection records are in place.
What this means in plain English
BIMI is the standard that lets you publish your company logo in such a way that mailbox providers display it next to your sender name in the inbox. Gmail, Apple Mail, Yahoo, and Fastmail support it today; Outlook is rolling out support during 2026.
It’s purely a brand-and-trust feature: a small visual cue that this mail is verifiably from you. It’s not a security control on its own — receivers only display the logo after they’ve already confirmed the message is genuinely yours via SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
Why it matters to your business
Two reasons to care:
- Visibility for genuine mail, not for fakes. Phishing campaigns pretending to come from your domain look generic in the inbox — a faceless blank circle next to your name. Your real mail with BIMI shows your logo. Recipients learn quickly which mails are visually authenticated and which aren’t, which makes phishing against your customers conspicuously off-brand.
- A small but real reputation lift. Mailbox providers see BIMI setup as a signal that you take email seriously, which feeds into inbox-vs-spam decisions for your bulk mail.
BIMI is the icing on the cake of an already-hardened email setup. If you have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC at “reject” already in place, BIMI is a few hours of work. If those records aren’t there yet, set them up first — start with our SPF article.
How to fix it
Setting BIMI up has three pieces. Whoever manages your domain and email can do this.
- Prepare your logo as an SVG file in the specific format BIMI expects (square, simple, under 32 KB). The BIMI Group converter does this in a browser tool.
- Host the SVG on your website at a stable address — for
example
https://your-domain.example/bimi/logo.svg. - Publish a small DNS entry on your domain that points to the
logo file. The technical line:
v=BIMI1; l=https://your-domain.example/bimi/logo.svg; a=https://your-domain.example/bimi/vmc.pem
The a= part points to a Verified Mark Certificate — a special
trademark certificate from DigiCert or Entrust that proves the logo
is yours. Gmail and Apple Mail require it; Yahoo and Fastmail accept
BIMI without one.
A Verified Mark Certificate costs roughly USD 1,000–1,500 per year
and takes a few days to issue (the issuer checks your trademark
registration). If you want full coverage at Gmail and Apple, that’s
the cost. If Yahoo and Fastmail are enough for now, set a=self and
skip the certificate — you can always add it later.