PNG to WebP

Why convert PNG to WebP?

PNG is lossless and supports transparency, which makes it right for logos, screenshots, diagrams and anything with sharp edges or text. It is the wrong choice for photographs, where it produces files several times larger than necessary.

WebP is Google's web image format, and it is now what a great many sites serve. Save a picture from the web and you often get a .webp file that Photoshop, older Office versions and plenty of upload forms will refuse.

What changes, and what does not

Converting a photographic PNG to JPEG typically cuts the size by 80% or more with no visible difference, which is why upload forms so often ask for it.

Converting to a classic format fixes that immediately. WebP supports transparency, so if the image has a transparent background and you convert it to JPEG, those areas are filled with your chosen background colour — pick PNG instead if you need the transparency kept.

It happens on your device

This conversion runs in your browser. The image is decoded, drawn to a canvas and re-encoded as WebP locally, so it is instant and the file is never uploaded. There is no queue, no daily limit and no watermark, because there is no server doing the work and therefore no cost to ration.

Converting a batch

Drop in up to thirty images at once and you get a zip back with every one converted. This is the usual case for a folder of PNG files off a phone or camera, where converting them one at a time is the actual chore.

Quality

The quality setting controls how hard the encoder compresses. At 88 the difference is invisible on a photograph. Below about 60 you will start to see softening around edges and detail in flat areas such as skies.