The Google WEBP image format is fantastic: its unique compression schemes can render images two-thirds the size of a JPEG or PNG image.

Despite years of development, a prominent presence in Google products, and widespread adoption experience, WEBP is still not fully supported by some popular photography tools, such as the Microsoft Photos app. He is one Elderly support Windows Photo Viewer. Here’s how to save a WEBP image in the most popular format.

Using Internet Explorer Mode in Microsoft Edge

One browser – Microsoft Internet Explorer – does not support WEBP. Therefore, if a website uses .webp files, it must serve JPEG or PNG versions of the same images to Microsoft Edge running in Internet Explorer mode. Getting JPEG or PNG versions of an image on a website is like opening it in Edge’s Internet Explorer mode and downloading the image from that browser.

First, you need to make sure you have an edge Internet Explorer mode is enabled.

Related: How to use Internet Explorer mode in Edge

Go to the web page containing the WEBP image, highlight the URL, right-click on it, and click Copy.

Fire up Edge, right-click in the address bar, click Paste, and press Enter.

Click 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” – you’ll see it below.

If the website does a proper server side conversion, the page will look the same, but this time all the images will be in JPEG or PNG format.

Right-click on the image, then click “Save Image As.”

Navigate to the destination folder and click Save and your image will be downloaded to that folder.

This is it. Go to the image and open or edit it like you would any other JPEG file.

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 a program already on your computer to convert the photos you have? Paint converts WEBP to JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF and a few other formats without the need to download additional software.

Right-click the image and click Open > Paint if it’s not set to open WEBP files by default.

Once the image is open in Paint, click File > Save and select a format from the available list.

Class: Drawing looks a bit different in Windows 10, but the options are the same.

Choose a destination for the file and click Save.

When you finish converting your image, 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 to encrypt, decrypt, and display WEBP. LinuxAnd this windowsAnd this Mac OS X. This is a slightly more advanced way to integrate into the software and website, but if you want to learn how to use the command line tool, feel free to follow along.

Depending on your operating system, 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 computers.

Open PowerShell in the folder containing the .webp files for conversion. to use cd Command to change directory. Replace “NAME” with your Windows username and it should look like this:

cd C:\users\NAME\Pictures

If you look in the “bin” folder, you may notice some files with .exe extension. In this guide, we will use a file dwebp.exe A command to decode (convert) a WEBP image. The command syntax looks like this:

C:\Path\To\dwebp.exe inputFile.webp -o outputFile

Notice how we specified the file extension for the resulting image? The decoder converts images to other formats, so we need to be specific. In this example we used PNG, but when using other converters it can output to TIFF, BMP and others. Full documentation can be found here Google WEBP.

Although there is no option to convert to JPEG, if you want to convert an image to JPEG, all you have to do is use “.jpeg” at the end of the output file. -o Metamorphosis.

Note: If you plan to use this tool a lot, you should consider Add the decoder, renderer, and encoder executables to your system path, to facilitate road access. You don’t need to be in the same directory as the executables when you want to run them from the command line from any folder.

Related: How to Edit System Path for Easy Command Prompt Access in Windows

After saving the tool converter image, you can navigate to the output file location and open it in any program of your choice.

Use an online conversion tool

If you want to use a website to convert your WEBP image to another format, there are plenty of sites that offer free online conversion tools to do so. They handle everything server-side, meaning you don’t have to download and install any software or learn command-line tools.

As with any online file conversion tool, you should not upload any kind of sensitive or confidential file. If you’re worried someone else might see it—for example, if it’s an image of a confidential document—it’s best to work on the file on your computer.

For the purpose of this guide, we will use it Jum Jum Online file conversion tool. It is completely free to use and the service claims that the uploaded file is deleted from the server within 24 hours. If you want to transfer more than five free simultaneous transfers, It also offers paid subscriptions.

Go to the Zamzar website, click Upload, select the file you want to convert, and then click Open. Instead, drag and drop files onto your computer’s browser tab.

Next, click Select Format and select a supported format to convert from the drop-down list.

Click on Convert Now.

Depending on the file size, the conversion takes only a few seconds. After the conversion, you will be redirected to the download page, then click on the download button to start the download.

If it’s not a file, it will automatically save to your default download location Every time the browser asks for the location of the download folder.

Related: How to Change Chrome Download Folder Location

To view the image, go to the folder where you saved it and open it with your favorite image viewer.

Use the special URL trick

As you might expect, Google uses its own WEBP images for all products and services Google Play Store. In some cases, you may want to slightly modify the image URL to be displayed in a different format. While this method won’t work on all websites, if you need to quickly force the Google Play Store to change an image for you, this little trick will save you time.

Open Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari or Opera – any browser that supports viewing WEBP images. Go to a site that uses WEBP images to save bandwidth in any app listings play.google.com.

Right-click or long-press on an image, then click the “Open image in new tab” option. A WEBP image gets its own tab, and the URL at the top of that tab is a direct link to the origin of the image – without showing anything else on the page.

Click in the URL bar, delete the last three letters in the address (“-rw”), then hit Enter. The same image is displayed again, but this time in its original format, usually JPEG or PNG. Right click or long press on the image and then select “Save Image As” option. It downloads in original format – just like any other file.

“Isn’t there an easier way to do this?” You may wonder that. As with most things related to browsers, there is a workaround Browser extension. There are many extensions that automatically handle converting WEBP files to any other image format you want, but you shouldn’t use them. Browser extensions are a privacy nightmareIts use should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.