What is a WebP file?

WebP is an open-source image format developed by Google. Specially designed for the web, you can find .webp files on many modern websites. 

WebP aims to provide users with image compression technology that balances quality and size, making it a great alternative to JPEGs and PNGs. 

Since WebP supports animation, it can also be used to substitute GIFs.  

Features and benefits of the WebP file format

WebP is compatible with lossy and lossless compressions.

Lossy compression allows you to achieve a really small file size by removing unnecessary data from your image. Meanwhile, lossless compression restructures the image more efficiently, keeping the quality as high as possible with minimal data removal.

With WebP, the compressed image will have a smaller size than any other formats, yet the image quality remains identical.

Here’s how WebP stacks up against PNG, JPEG, and GIF:

• WebP vs PNG – WebP files are 26% smaller than PNGs and 200% lighter for images supporting transparency
• WebP vs JPEG – WebP is usually 25-34% smaller than JPEGs
• WebP vs GIF – lossless and lossy WebP can give you 16% and 64% smaller image size, respectively, compared to GIF

Since it’s very lightweight, websites using WebP load faster. 

For example, YouTube changed its thumbnails to WebP format and successfully reduced page loading time by 10%.

Using this image format can make you rank higher on search results as well, considering page speed is a huge ranking factor. 

Furthermore, you will use less storage space on your hosting. You can upload more images and hold off upgrading your plan until it’s really necessary. 

How to open WebP files

Popular web browsers like Opera, Edge, Chrome, and Firefox can open WebP files both online and offline, regardless of your operating system.

Microsoft, macOS, iOS, and Linux can’t display WebP images using their default image viewer apps. To solve this issue, you should install third-party software.

How to convert WebP files into other file formats like JPEG, PNG and animated GIFs

If you can’t open WebP files, one of the solutions is to convert them to a common image format like PNG or JPEG using a converter software.

The process is generally the same across all programs. You have to input the WebP image, specify the output format, and click the convert button. Then, you can save the converted file and view it on your device.