What is WebP, and why do I keep running into it?
WebP is an image format Google introduced in 2010 to make web pages lighter. It produces files about 25–35% smaller than JPEG at similar quality and also supports transparency. Most big websites now serve images as WebP, so when you right-click and save a picture from a shop, news site or Google Images, you often get a .webp file even if the page looked like an ordinary JPG.
Browsers handle WebP fine. Many other places still don't: older versions of Windows Photo Viewer and Office, some photo-printing services, online forms that list only JPG and PNG, and plenty of desktop and mobile apps.
What the conversion does
The WebP is decoded and saved as a JPEG at 92% quality, with the same width and height. Transparent areas, common in WebP logos and product cut-outs, are placed on white, because JPG can't store transparency. If you need to keep transparency, keep the WebP, or shrink it further with the Image Compressor, which keeps WebP as WebP.
Animated WebPs, the WebP equivalent of a GIF, convert to a still JPG of the first frame, because JPG can't hold animation.
Will the JPG be bigger than the WebP?
Expect the JPG to be somewhat larger than the WebP, often 20–50% bigger, because JPEG is the less efficient format and the conversion uses a high quality setting to avoid adding visible loss. If you need it smaller, run the JPG through the Image Compressor afterwards.
How do I avoid saving images as WebP?
On some sites, opening the image in a new tab and saving from there gives the original JPG. Some browser extensions can also save images in a format of your choice. For one-off images, converting here is simply faster.
Private and batch-friendly
Drop in a whole folder of WebP files and download the JPGs one by one or as a ZIP. Conversion runs in your browser, with no upload and no account.
Why is my .jpg file actually WebP?
Websites often decide the format at download time. When your browser asks for an image, it says which formats it understands, and many sites and image CDNs answer with WebP even when the address ends in .jpg. Save the picture and you get WebP data. Sometimes the file is even named .jpg, which confuses apps that check the contents. Converting here produces a genuine JPEG, whatever the original file was called.
Can I open WebP files without converting?
On a Mac, Preview opens WebP files (macOS Big Sur and later), and Windows 10 and 11 display them in the Photos app through Microsoft's WebP image extension, usually installed by default. Photoshop has opened WebP natively since 2022, and GIMP has supported it for years. So converting is mainly needed for upload forms, older software, print services and apps on phones and tablets that only list JPG and PNG.
Lossless WebP graphics
WebP has a lossless mode too, often used for logos, icons and interface graphics. Converting those to JPG works, but JPG is designed for photos, so text and hard edges may get slightly soft. For photographs, which make up most WebP images on the web, the 92% JPG looks the same as the WebP.
Why 92% quality
Every conversion from one lossy format to another loses a little. Saving the JPG at 92% keeps that loss below what you can see, while still producing reasonable file sizes. At 100% the file would be much bigger without looking any better, because the WebP's own compression has already set the ceiling on detail. If the JPG needs to be smaller, run it through the Image Compressor afterwards and choose a lower quality there, where you can see the result before downloading.
Converting many images from a website
If you've saved a set of product photos, recipe steps or gallery images that all came down as WebP, add them all at once. Each converted JPG keeps its original file name with a .jpg extension, so the order and naming you saved them with is preserved, and you can download everything together as a ZIP. Check the image's licence before reusing anything from someone else's website; converting the format doesn't change who owns it. For your own images, it's also worth keeping the WebP originals: they're smaller, and you can always convert them again if a different format is needed later.