How to Display Your Logo in Apple Mail (and other clients) with BIMI
Enhance your transactional email branding and build trust by displaying your brand logo directly in the inbox. This BIMI setup guide explains how to implement Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) to show your logo in Apple Mail and other email clients, leveraging strong DMARC policies.
Section 1
Understanding BIMI and Its Benefits for Transactional Email
Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) is an email specification that allows organizations to display their brand logo next to their sender name in supporting email clients, such as Apple Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. For transactional emails, this means your password reset, order confirmation, or OTP verification emails instantly convey authenticity and professionalism. Implementing BIMI significantly boosts brand trust and recognition, making your emails stand out in a crowded inbox and reducing the likelihood of them being marked as spam. It's a powerful tool for enhancing your overall email logo display and user experience.
1dig +short TXT _bimi.yourdomain.comSection 2
The DMARC Foundation: A Prerequisite for BIMI Implementation
Before you can implement BIMI, your domain must have a robust DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) policy enforced. This means your DMARC record should be set to p=quarantine or p=reject, not p=none. DMARC builds upon SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) to verify email authenticity. A strong DMARC policy ensures that your emails are properly authenticated, which is a critical security measure that BIMI relies upon to prevent logo spoofing. Without proper DMARC alignment, your BIMI record will not be honored by email clients.
1dig +short TXT _dmarc.yourdomain.com2# Expected output might look like:3# "v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@yourdomain.com; fo=1"Section 3
Creating Your BIMI DNS TXT Record
Once your DMARC policy is enforced, the next step is to create a BIMI DNS TXT record for your domain. This record will point to your brand's SVG logo file and, optionally, your Verified Mark Certificate (VMC). A VMC is a digital certificate that verifies your ownership of the logo, adding an extra layer of trust. The BIMI record is typically added as a TXT record under the _bimi subdomain. Ensure your SVG logo is publicly accessible and meets the BIMI specifications (square, SVG Tiny 1.2 profile, secure HTTPS URL).
1{2 "record_type": "TXT",3 "host": "_bimi.yourdomain.com",4 "value": "v=BIMI1; l=https://yourdomain.com/path/to/logo.svg; a=https://yourdomain.com/path/to/vmc.pem;"5}Section 4
Sending BIMI-Ready Emails with Piisend
Piisend, as a transactional email API for developers, inherently supports BIMI by ensuring your emails are DMARC-aligned when sent from a verified domain. There are no special API calls required to 'enable' BIMI through Piisend; the magic happens at the DNS level and through proper email authentication. As long as your domain is verified with Piisend and your DMARC, SPF, and DKIM records are correctly configured, Piisend will send emails that are eligible for BIMI display. Focus on sending your transactional emails as usual, and the receiving mail server will handle the BIMI lookup based on your DNS records.
1import httpx2 3api_key = "YOUR_API_KEY"4 5response = httpx.post(6 "https://api.piisend.com/api/v1/emails",7 headers={8 "Authorization": f"Bearer {api_key}",9 "Content-Type": "application/json"10 },11 json={12 "to": ["recipient@example.com"],13 "from": "noreply@yourdomain.com",14 "subject": "Your Order Confirmation",15 "html": "<p>Thank you for your order!</p>",16 "text": "Thank you for your order!"17 }18)19 20print(response.status_code)21print(response.json())Section 5
Verifying Your BIMI Implementation in Email Clients
After setting up your BIMI DNS record and ensuring DMARC enforcement, it's crucial to verify that your logo appears correctly in supporting email clients. Send a test email from your BIMI-enabled domain to various email providers, especially Apple Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Keep in mind that it can take some time for DNS changes to propagate and for email clients to update their caches. If your logo isn't appearing, double-check your DMARC policy, the BIMI TXT record syntax, and the accessibility of your SVG logo file. Tools like BIMI Group's BIMI Validator can help diagnose issues with your setup.
1POST https://api.piisend.com/api/v1/emails2Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY3Content-Type: application/json4 5{6 "to": ["test-recipient@gmail.com", "test-recipient@icloud.com"],7 "from": "support@yourdomain.com",8 "subject": "BIMI Test Email from Piisend",9 "html": "<p>This is a test email to check BIMI logo display.</p>",10 "text": "This is a test email to check BIMI logo display."11}
