What is a WebP file?
A WebP is a picture file made for websites. It holds the same image as a JPG or a PNG in a much lighter file, and it can have a see-through background, which is why so many sites have switched to it and why you keep ending up with them.
WEBP AT A GLANCE
- File extension
- .webp
- Best for
- Pictures on websites
- Transparency
- Yes
- Animation
- Yes
- File size
- Small
- Opens in
- All browsers
Why websites keep sending you these
Websites use WebP because the pictures are lighter, so their pages load faster. Your browser accepts them without asking, so when you save an image you get a .webp.
Nobody chose this to be awkward. A page with a hundred pictures on it loads noticeably quicker in the lighter format, and from your side the page looks exactly the same. The whole point is that you are not supposed to notice, right up until you right-click and save something.
So this is not a strange or broken file. It is an ordinary picture in a newer wrapper, and everything on the web can read it perfectly well.
Why your software will not open it
Web browsers understood WebP years before everything else did. Plenty of older desktop programs, office software and email apps still do not, which is where the frustration comes from.
It is a gap that keeps closing, but it has not closed. You will most often hit it with an older photo editor, a document you are putting together for work, or an upload form that only wants a JPG. The file is fine; the program simply does not recognise it.
The fix takes a few seconds. Convert it to PNG if it has a see-through background or you want an exact copy, or to JPG if it is a photograph and you want the most widely accepted file there is.
Why it can replace both PNG and JPG
WebP is unusual in doing two jobs at once: it can keep a see-through background the way PNG does, and it can hold a photograph in a small file the way JPG does.
Before it existed you generally had to pick. A transparent logo meant a PNG and a heavier file. A small photo meant a JPG and no transparency. WebP removed that choice, which is why it took over websites so quickly.
If you look after a site of your own, that makes it an easy improvement. Converting your pictures to WebP is one of the few changes that makes pages faster without anyone being able to see a difference. The WebP converter goes both ways, so you can move a whole folder across or bring files back again.
When to keep something else
Keep a PNG or a JPG for anything you hand to another person, and for files headed to print or into older software.
Clients, printers, upload forms and office documents still expect the older formats far more often than not. Sending a WebP to someone who cannot open it is a small, avoidable annoyance, and it is worth keeping the original around for exactly that.
The sensible arrangement for most people: keep your originals as they are, publish WebP on your website, and convert back whenever somebody needs a file from you.
Questions people ask
Because the website sent one. Sites use WebP because the files are lighter and pages load faster, and your browser accepts them happily. When you save the picture, you save whatever the site sent, so you end up with a .webp even though the page looked completely normal.
Support outside web browsers arrived much later than support inside them. Every current browser shows WebP, but plenty of older desktop programs, office software and email apps have never caught up. Converting the file to PNG or JPG solves it.
Yes, which is unusual. Most formats give you either a small file or a transparent background, not both. WebP does both, which is why it can replace PNG for logos and JPG for photographs.
Not in any way you would notice. WebP holds the same picture in a lighter file, which is the whole reason websites use it. Converting one to PNG or JPG will not improve it, it will just make the file bigger.
Yes. Some WebP files hold a short animation rather than a single picture, a bit like a GIF but sharper and lighter. Converting one to a still format gives you a single frame rather than the movement.
Usually yes. It is the easiest way to make a page load faster without anyone noticing a difference in the pictures, and every current browser handles it. Keep your originals somewhere for anything you need to hand to another person.