# How do I send with an avatar?

> Show your logo or photo as an avatar in recipients' inboxes. Per-provider profile pictures only cover that provider; BIMI and Apple Branded Mail let your logo show across an entire domain.

An avatar — your logo or a photo shown next to your name in the inbox — is a small thing that does real work. Industry studies have linked a recognizable sender logo to **higher brand recall, better open rates, stronger purchase intent, and more confidence in the email**. The catch is that there's no single switch: almost every mailbox provider has its own way of attaching a picture to an address.

There are two broad approaches. You can set a profile picture **per provider** (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Apple Mail), which only affects mail seen in that provider and only for the exact address you set it on. Or you can authenticate your logo at the **domain** level with BIMI or Apple Branded Mail, which lets your logo show for any address on the domain across many providers.

## Gmail

1. Go to your [Google Account settings](https://myaccount.google.com/personal-info).
2. Upload a profile picture.

Avatars in Gmail display in the **mobile app** (including in push notifications) and inside **opened emails on desktop**.

## Outlook

1. Go to your [Outlook profile settings](https://account.microsoft.com/profile/).
2. Upload a profile picture.

Avatars in Outlook display in the **mobile app** and inside **opened emails on desktop**.

## Yahoo

1. Go to your [Yahoo account settings](https://login.yahoo.com/account/personalinfo).
2. Upload a profile picture.

Avatars in Yahoo display in the **mobile app** and inside an **opened email on desktop**.

## Apple Mail

Apple Mail only shows an avatar if the recipient has added an image to their **contact card** for you. For a logo that shows without the recipient doing anything, set up [Apple Branded Mail](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/kb/apple-branded-mail) — a proprietary Apple format introduced with iOS 18.2 that displays your logo as an avatar in Apple Mail — or set up [BIMI](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/domains/bimi) with a Verified Mark Certificate.

## Using Gravatar

Some clients (e.g. Thunderbird, Airmail, Postbox) display an image from [Gravatar](https://gravatar.com). Create a free Gravatar account, add your avatar, and verify the addresses you send from to that account so your image is displayed in those clients.

## Limitations

Because each provider stores its own profile picture, the per-provider approach has two hard limits:

1. You can only add an avatar to a **real inbox**, limiting it to that one provider.
2. You can only show it on mail sent **from the same address** you set the avatar on.

> **Note:** The way around both limits is **[BIMI](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/domains/bimi)** (Brand Indicators for Message Identification). BIMI is supported by nearly all major providers and lets you send from **any** address on a domain while showing the same logo. It builds directly on your authentication — you need a `p=quarantine` or `p=reject` [DMARC](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/domains/dmarc) policy first. See [Set up BIMI](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/domains/bimi) for the full walkthrough.