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.
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
7days
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 Nextmail 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 → General → Pictures of people. Off keeps Nextmail photos, contact photos and marks.
Good practice
Getting the most out of it
- 01
Add contact photos
A contact photo you add beats Gravatar and any logo.
- 02
Publish a BIMI logo
Addresses with no photo or Gravatar then show your logo in Nextmail, not a site icon.
- 03
Read a missing logo
A mark where a familiar logo usually sits can mean a failed DMARC check.
Questions
Asked often
Keep going
Works well with
Start
Your domain,
your mail.
Point a domain at Nextmail and read it in a mailbox built around it. The free plan covers one domain.
Google Workspace
Fastmail