Troubleshoot BIMI issues

Follow the troubleshooting steps in this article if:

• Your logo isn’t showing in recipient’s inbox.
• Your messages are sent to spam.

Many BIMI issues can be identified and resolved by following the steps in this section.

First, verify BIMI is set up correctly

Before you take any troubleshooting steps, make sure your BIMI record is set up correctly by verifying the setup steps:

1. Create and upload your brand logo file.
2. Get your Verified Mark Certificate.
3. Add a BIMI TXT record at your domain provider.

Logo doesn’t display in recipient’s inbox

If your brand logo doesn’t appear as expected in the recipient’s inbox, there are several possible causes.

Recommended steps:

Email client issues

• Verify that the recipient is using an email client that supports BIMI. Refer to the documentation for the email client.

VMC issues

• Verify the status of your VMC. Check with the certificate authority that issued your VMC.
• If your VMC is approved, verify that the .pem file for the VMC is accessible on your public web server. 
• If you have hosting issues or errors with the .pem file, contact your domain provider for help.
• Verify that your .pem file includes any appended CA certificates.
• Verify the URL for the .pem file is correct in your BIMI record.
• Make sure the SVG that is embedded in the VMC is correctly formatted to support VMC. For details, go to the Fetch and Validation of Verified Mark Certificates standard.

BIMI image issues

• Verify the SVG file for your brand logo meets the requirements and recommendations for BIMI image files.
• Verify the SVG file is accessible on your public web server.
• Verify the public web server is in the same domain as the domain where you added the DNS TXT record for BIMI.
• Verify the URL for the SVG file is correct in your BIMI record.

Messages from your organization are sent to spam

If messages from your domain are sent to spam, the issue might be email authentication for your domain.

Recommended steps:

• Verify DMARC is correctly set up for your domain. We recommend you set up both SPF and DKIM before setting up DMARC. Learn more about email authentication, and get detailed setup steps at Prevent spam, spoofing & phishing with Gmail authentication.
• Verify your DMARC policy is set up with the correct values for BIMI:
  • Policy option (p) must be set to quarantine or reject. BIMI doesn’t support DMARC policies that have the p option set to none.
  • Percent option (pct) must be set to 100. This value applies the DMARC policy to all outgoing mail (100 percent) from your domain. BIMI doesn’t support DMARC policies that have a pct value other than 100.