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What’s an ANIBIMI? A completely fake term that I just made up! It’s not a BIMI — it’s an animated user image for a Google profile, and (at least until Google decides they don’t like this any more) it’s your way to make an animated BIMI-like logo that will display for Gmail subscribers (only).Repeat after me: This is not actually a BIMI logo! You should still implement a BIMI logo! Especially since Apple’s jumping on the BIMI bandwagon. But since a lot of people have asked about animated profile images lately, I thought I would share this fun little trick. (And keep in mind that you can set this up and use it as a potential stopgap until you get that VMC certificate and are able to fully implement BIMI.)Create an animated GIF. There are lots of tools online that’ll help you with this, like EZGif, Imgflip or Canva. Because I’m
It’s time for another BIMI update, and this time it’s chock full of new details that you’ll want to know! So let’s get right to it.The Authindicators Working Group (the folks behind the BIMI spec) have just indicated that Apple plans BIMI support! The information published so far suggests that it’s coming this fall to both iOS and MacOS. Beyond that, details are light; so don’t ask me (or them) for greater definition just yet. I’m sure when they have details, they will share. And when they share, I will share.Where does that leave us today? Here’s your status update on ISP support for BIMI as of June, 2022.Yes: Which ISPs/MBPs/email applications support BIMI today or plan to support it in the near future: Apple (iOS and MacOS email clients), Fastmail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. (This also includes Pobox, AOL/Netscape, and Google for Business)Perhaps: Which ISPs are currently considering BIMI support:
Obtaining a VMC (Verified Mark Certificate) can be a hurdle for folks who want to implement a BIMI logo. You can proceed without it, but if you do, while your logo likely will show up in Yahoo Mail and Fastmail, but it isn’t going to show up in Gmail, as Google has made a VMC cert a requirement for their BIMI installation.If you don’t have a VMC today — here’s how you can work around that, and implement a BIMI-like sender logo display for Fastmail, Yahoo and Gmail.First, do set up a BIMI record, even though you don’t have a VMC. Here are logo requirements, and here’s what you need to setup the overall DNS record, including authentication-related prerequisites.That’ll cover you for Yahoo and Fastmail. Now, Gmail. Note that this Gmail workaround is NOT A BIMI LOGO — I don’t want anybody to get mad at me, thinking I’m trying…
It’s time for your periodic BIMI adoption status update. A quick overview of what this is all about: BIMI is a standard being adopted by multiple internet services providers (ISPs) to allow the display of a sender’s logo along side email messages, when displayed on a mobile device or in a webmail client. Some ISPs and mail clients have had a sender logo display function for a while now (one example is Gravatar), but BIMI is an attempt to standardize and regulate this mechanism across the email ecosystem.Adoption by senders seems a bit slow; but the spec only went public in 2019, which isn’t that long ago. Also, it suffers a bit from the “chicken and egg” problem — it’s hard to convince senders to adopt the standard if receivers haven’t adopted support for the standard. But now with two of the top three B2C mailbox providers (Yahoo and Gmail) having BIMI support, I’m…