Why convert JPG photos to WebP
Images are usually the heaviest part of a web page. A WebP that looks like your JPG but is smaller means less to download, which helps pages load faster, especially on slow connections and phones. It is one of the simplest ways to lighten a gallery, a blog or a shop.
WebP can also hold transparency and, in other tools, animation, which JPG cannot. For photos, though, size is the reason to switch.
What to expect from the result
- A little extra loss. Your JPG has already been compressed once. Encoding it again as lossy WebP compresses it a second time. At quality 85 and above the extra loss is hard to see. Do the conversion once, from your best original.
- Savings that vary. Busy, detailed photos shrink less than smooth ones. A JPG that was already saved at low quality may not shrink at all. The list shows each file's size, and if a result is not smaller, keep the JPG.
- Metadata. By default the EXIF block is not copied. Choose Keep to carry the camera details and date into the WebP. Check the GPS warning in the list before sharing.
Using WebP on a website
All current major browsers display WebP, so most sites can use it directly. If you still need to support very old browsers or programs, serve a JPG fallback with the HTML picture element and keep your JPG originals. For the other direction, see WebP to JPG. Logos and screenshots with transparency are covered in PNG to WebP.