---
title: "Email sender pictures and logos"
description: "OpenEmail shows a photo, BIMI logo or site icon beside each sender, looked up from its own servers, and a mark seeded on the address when none is found."
url: "https://openemail.uk/features/sender-avatar"
---

[Safety & authenticity](https://openemail.uk/features.md#safety)

# Sender pictures A real picture, or a mark that is theirs alone.

Five sources are asked in order and the first answer wins. When none has one, a shape seeded on the address is drawn.

[Open mail](https://openemail.uk/mail/inbox) [Get Started](https://openemail.uk/signup.md)[All features](https://openemail.uk/features.md)

In short

## Where do sender pictures in email come from?

An email carries no picture of its sender, so the mail app finds one: its own accounts, your address book, Gravatar, or the sending domain’s BIMI logo. Most fall back to an initial.

5

Sources, asked in order

0

Browser requests to Gravatar or sender sites

7 days

Before a found picture is fetched again

How it works

## Fetched by our servers, not your browser

Gravatar gets a hash, not the address, and answers are cached. Consumer domains are never asked for a logo, so gmail.com senders never wear Google’s.

## A shape instead of a first letter

A letter has 26 values, so initials repeat across an inbox. A shape seeded on the address differs per person and never changes.

## No picture beside a forged sender

In the list and the open message, mail that does not pass DMARC gets the mark alone. A real logo beside a forged address helps the attacker.

What you get

## In the product today

Your own photo

Set in Account, shown to people on OpenEmail wherever your address appears.

One mark per person

Bob@acme.com and bob@acme.com are one person, so they get one mark.

Lookups are one switch

Account → Pictures of people. Off keeps OpenEmail photos, contact photos and marks.

Good practice

## Getting the most out of it

1. 01
   
   Add contact photos
   
   A contact photo you add beats Gravatar and any logo.
2. 02
   
   Publish a BIMI logo
   
   Addresses with no photo or Gravatar then show your logo in OpenEmail, not a site icon.
3. 03
   
   Read a missing logo
   
   A mark where a familiar logo usually sits can mean a failed DMARC check.

Where it stands

## Good to know

Questions

## Asked often

Keep going

## Works well with

Verified sender

A mark beside the sender when the sending domain’s published records line up.

Remote image control

Stop a sender fetching anything from their own server while you read.

DMARC policy

A starter p=none record, printed to copy or written by a sync, never tightened for you.

Start

## Your domain, your mail.

Point a domain at OpenEmail and read it in a mailbox built around it. The free plan covers one domain.

[Open mail](https://openemail.uk/mail/inbox) [Get Started](https://openemail.uk/signup.md)[Read the reference](https://openemail.uk/docs/knowledge/safety/sender-avatar.md)