Google’s WEBP image format is pretty cool: its unique compression systems can display images at about two-thirds the size of the same image displayed in JPEG or PNG format.
Despite years of development, prominent presence in Google products, and widespread adoption, WEBP is still not fully supported by the most common image tools around, such as Microsoft’s Photos program. does supported by older Windows Photo Viewer. How to save a WEBP image in a more common format.
Using Microsoft Edge’s Internet Explorer mode
One browser — Microsoft Internet Explorer — does not support WEBP. So, if a website uses .webp files, it must serve JPEG or PNG versions of those images to Microsoft Edge running in Internet Explorer mode. Getting JPEG or PNG versions of an image on a website is often as simple as opening it in Edge’s Internet Explorer mode and then downloading the image from that browser.
First, you need to make sure that you enable Edge’s Internet Explorer mode.
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Go to the web page containing the WEBP image, highlight the URL, right-click on it, then click Copy.
Fire up Edge, right-click the address bar, click Paste, and then press Enter.
Then click on the three dots in the upper right corner to open the “Settings and More” menu.
Look at the options and click “Reload in Internet Explorer mode” – it will be near the bottom.
If the website does the correct server-side conversion, the page will look the same, but this time all the images will be in JPEG or PNG format.
Right-click the image, then click “Save Image As.”
Navigate to the destination folder, then click “Save” and your image will be downloaded to that folder.
This is so. Go to the image and open or edit it like any other JPEG.
Using MS Paint
If you are using Windows 10 or Windows 11, you can download the WEBP image to your hard drive and use MS Paint to open it.
Why not use the software you already have on your computer to convert any image you have? Paint converts WEBP to JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, and several other formats without downloading any additional software.
Right-click the image, then click Open With > Paint if it’s not set to open WEBP files by default.
After opening the image in Paint, click File > Save As, then choose a format from the available list.
Note: Paint in Windows 10 looks quite different, but the options are the same.
Select a destination for the file, then click the “Save” button.
Once your image is finished converting, it will appear in the folder where you saved it.
Using the command line
If you feel more comfortable behind the command line, Google offers utilities for encoding, decoding, and viewing WEBP on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. It’s a slightly more advanced method that’s great for integrating into apps and websites. but if you want to learn how to use a command line tool, feel free to follow along.
Depending on your OS, use the appropriate link above to download the libraries, then extract the files to your computer. We’ll be using Windows PowerShell, but it should work the same on all systems.
Open PowerShell to the folder containing the .webp files to convert. use it cd command to change directory. It should look like this, replacing “NAME” with your Windows username:
cd C:\users\NAME\Pictures
If you look in the “bin” folder, you can see several files with the extension .exe. For this tutorial we will use dwebp.exe Command to decode (convert) WEBP image. The command syntax looks like this:
C:\Path\To\dwebp.exe inputFile.webp -o outputFile
Notice how we set the file extension for the output image? The decoder converts images to other formats, so we need to be specific. We’ve used PNG in this example, but it can output TIFF, BMP, and several other formats when using other keys. Full documentation can be found on the Google WEBP site.
Although there isn’t an option to convert to JPEG, if you want to convert an image to JPEG, just add “.jpeg” to the end of the output file when using the file. -o transition.
Tip: If you plan to use this tool often, you may want to consider adding the encoder, decoder, and viewer executables to your system path for easier access on the go. This ensures that when you want to run it from the command line from any directory, you are in the same directory as the executables.
RELATED: How to edit the system PATH for easy command line access in Windows
After the tool converts and saves the image, you can navigate to the output file location and open it with your desired program.
Using the Online Conversion Tool
If you prefer to use a website to convert a WEBP image to another format instead, there are many sites that offer free online conversion tools to do so. They handle everything server-side, meaning you don’t need to download and install any software or learn command-line tools.
As with any online file conversion tool, you should not download any sensitive or confidential files. If you’re worried that someone else might see it—for example, if it’s an image of a confidential document—it’s best to work with the file only on your own computer.
For the purpose of this tutorial, we will be using Zamzar online file conversion tool. It is completely free to use and the service says that the uploaded file is deleted from the server within 24 hours. It also offers paid subscriptions if you want to convert more than five free simultaneous conversions.
Go to the Zamzar website, click “Download”, select the file you want to convert, then click “Open”. Alternatively, simply drag and drop files from your computer to the browser tab.
Then, click “Select Format” and select a supported format to convert from the drop-down menu.
Click “Convert Now” button.
Depending on the size of the file, the conversion should only take a few seconds. After the conversion, you will be redirected to the download page, then click the “Download” button to start the download.
Unless your browser asks you for the location of the download folder each time, it will be automatically saved to your default download location.
RELATED: How to change Chrome download folder location
To view an image, navigate to the folder where you saved it and open it with your favorite image viewer.
Using a Custom URL Trick
As you might expect, Google uses its own WEBP images for all products and services in the Google Play Store. In some cases, you can slightly modify the URL of the image to display in a different format. While this method won’t work for all websites, if you need to quickly get the Google Play Store to convert an image for you, this neat little trick can save you some time.
Open Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari or Opera – almost any browser that supports WEBP image display. Visit a site that uses WEBP images to save bandwidth, such as the app listings on play.google.com.
Right-click or long-press on one of the images and then click “Open image in new tab.” The WEBP image then gets its own tab, and the URL above that tab is a direct link to the image asset without displaying anything else on the page.
Click the URL bar, remove the last three characters (“-rw”) from the address, and then press Enter. The same image will be displayed again, but this time it will be displayed in its original format, usually JPEG or PNG. Right-click or long-press on the image and then select “Save image as”. This downloads it in its original format – just like any other file.
“Isn’t there an easier way to do this?” you may ask. There is – as with most things related to browsers, the solution is a browser extension. There are plenty of extensions that will automatically handle the conversion of WEBP files to any other image format you want, but you probably shouldn’t use them. Browser extensions are a privacy scare and you should avoid using them unless absolutely necessary.