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Glossary · BIMI
What is BIMI?
BIMI displays your brand logo next to your mail in a recipient's inbox. It is gated on DMARC enforcement, not on the logo itself.
1 min read · Updated August 2026
BIMI, Brand Indicators for Message Identification, displays a sender's logo next to their mail in a recipient's inbox, on the providers that support it. Google states plainly that BIMI requires a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject, at 100 percent enforcement. A DMARC record still at p=none does not qualify, regardless of how correct the rest of the setup is.
Most senders treat BIMI as a logo or design task. It is really a reward for an authentication level many senders have not reached yet, which is why the DMARC record, not the logo file, is usually the actual blocker.
The logo itself publishes as an SVG file referenced in a BIMI DNS record, and Gmail additionally distinguishes a Verified Mark Certificate, which unlocks a checkmark next to the logo, from a Common Mark Certificate, which displays the logo without the checkmark. Moving a DMARC record to enforcement is the real prerequisite step, not a certificate or a logo file.