WebP is a modern image format developed by Google. It compresses photos and graphics more efficiently than JPG and PNG, so pages load faster and files take up less space — at the same visible quality.
The downside: some older apps and workflows still don't recognise WebP, which is why people often convert it back to JPG or PNG.
Convert to or from WebP with WebP to JPG, WebP to PNG, JPG to WebP or PNG to WebP.
How much smaller is WebP in practice
For photographs, lossy WebP typically lands 25-35% below a JPG of equivalent visual quality. For graphics with transparency, lossless WebP is usually around 20-25% smaller than PNG. On an image-heavy page those savings compound into a noticeably faster load, which is why WebP has become the default export format for most website tooling.
Two modes in one format
WebP covers both jobs. Lossy WebP works like JPG, discarding detail to save space, and suits photographs. Lossless WebP works like PNG, reproducing every pixel exactly, and suits logos, screenshots and line art. Unlike JPG, lossy WebP also supports transparency, making it the only common format that can do a soft-edged cut-out at photographic compression rates.
Compatibility today
Every browser released in roughly the last five years handles WebP, including Safari since version 14. The friction is no longer the web but everything around it: some desktop editors, older print workflows, various upload forms and plenty of phone galleries still refuse it. That mismatch is why converting WebP back to JPG or PNG is a more common need than converting to it.
WebP and PDFs
PDF has no native support for WebP. Embedding a WebP image into a document means decoding it and re-encoding it as something the format understands, normally JPEG for photographs or a lossless encoding for graphics. That happens automatically when you build a PDF from images, and it is why a PDF assembled from WebP files is often larger than the sources it came from.