WebP FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions About WebP Images

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Answers to the most common WebP questions — browser support, quality settings, tooling, use cases, and comparisons with JPEG, PNG, and AVIF.

Whether you’re a developer evaluating WebP for a new project, a designer wondering about editor support, or a site owner weighing the trade-offs against older formats, these are the questions that come up most often. Work through them to get a clear picture of where WebP fits — and where it doesn’t.

Is WebP Supported in All Browsers? #

All major modern browsers support WebP. Coverage milestones: Chrome 23+, Firefox 65+, Safari 14+, and Edge 18+. Global support now exceeds 95%, so the vast majority of your visitors can display WebP images without any intervention. For the small percentage of users on older browsers, use the <picture> element to provide a fallback:

<picture>
  <source srcset="image.webp" type="image/webp" />
  <img src="image.jpg" alt="Description of the image" />
</picture>

The browser picks the first source it understands and falls back to the <img> tag automatically.

Check the latest coverage figures at caniuse.com/webp before making decisions for your specific audience.

Should I Use WebP or AVIF? #

Both are modern, efficient formats that beat JPEG and PNG on file size, but they suit different situations. AVIF typically achieves 20–50% smaller files than WebP at the same perceived quality, making it the better choice when compression is the top priority. The trade-offs are slower encoding times and slightly lower browser support compared to WebP.

For maximum compatibility, serve AVIF to browsers that support it, WebP to those that don’t, and fall back to JPEG for everyone else:

<picture>
  <source srcset="image.avif" type="image/avif" />
  <source srcset="image.webp" type="image/webp" />
  <img src="image.jpg" alt="Description of the image" />
</picture>

Browsers evaluate <source> elements in order and use the first format they support, so list AVIF first.

If your build pipeline is time-sensitive, generate WebP only during development and add AVIF in a background or CI step — encoding AVIF can be 10–50× slower than WebP.

If you have existing WebP assets and want to move them to AVIF, convert WebP to AVIF online — no software to install.

Does WebP Support 16-Bit Colour Depth? #

No. WebP is limited to 8 bits per channel, which means 24-bit RGB (16.7 million colours) or 32-bit RGBA (with an alpha channel). That range is sufficient for virtually all web and screen use cases.

If your workflow requires 16-bit depth — for example, medical imaging, scientific visualisation, or HDR photography — use PNG (lossless, up to 16 bits per channel) or TIFF instead.

Can I Use WebP for Printing? #

WebP is designed and optimised for screen display, not print production. Print workflows typically require formats with wider colour gamut support, CMYK colour space handling, and lossless fidelity.

Use TIFF for professional print production or high-resolution archival work, or high-quality JPEG when file size is a concern and the printer accepts it. Convert from the original source file rather than from a WebP export.

Will Converting to WebP Degrade Quality? #

It depends on which WebP mode you use. Lossy WebP discards some image data, just as JPEG does. At quality settings of 80–85, the difference is imperceptible to most viewers for photographic content. Below quality 70, artefacts become more visible — especially around sharp edges and text. Lossless WebP preserves every pixel exactly. Use it for graphics, screenshots, logos, and any image where pixel-perfect accuracy matters.

Never convert from a previously compressed JPEG to lossy WebP. You’ll compound the quality loss from both compression passes. Always convert from the highest-quality original source — ideally a RAW file, lossless TIFF, or PNG.

What Tools Can Open WebP Files? #

Support for WebP has become widespread across operating systems and editing applications:

Desktop Editors #

Adobe Photoshop 2023+ (built-in; older versions need the WebP plugin)
GIMP 2.10+ (built-in)
Affinity Photo 1.7+
XnView MP
IrfanView (with plugin)

OS Viewers #

macOS Preview (macOS 11 Big Sur+)
Windows Photos (Windows 10 version 1903+)
Most modern Linux image viewers (Eye of GNOME, Shotwell)
iOS and Android photo apps (iOS 14+, Android natively)

If an older application can’t open a WebP file, convert it to PNG or JPEG first using cwebp/dwebp, or use our free WebP to PNG and WebP to JPG converters right in your browser.

How Do I Use WebP in Email? #

Email client support for WebP is inconsistent and not reliable enough for production use. Gmail and Apple Mail render WebP correctly, but many widely used clients — including older versions of Outlook and various webmail interfaces — do not.

Stick to JPEG or PNG for email images. These formats have universal support across all email clients and are the safe, well-tested choice for campaigns and transactional messages.

If you must serve different formats to different email clients, a server-side image transformation service (such as Cloudinary or imgix) can detect the client via the User-Agent header and serve the appropriate format dynamically.

Is WebP Open Source and Patent-Free? #

Yes. WebP is developed and maintained by Google, and the reference implementation (libwebp) is released under the BSD licence — a permissive open-source licence that allows free use in both open and commercial projects.

Google has also made a royalty-free commitment for the WebP format itself, meaning you can use WebP in your products without patent licensing fees or legal risk. This is one of WebP’s significant advantages over formats tied to patent-encumbered codecs.

What Is the Maximum WebP Image Size? #

WebP supports a maximum canvas size of 16,383 × 16,383 pixels in both dimensions. This ceiling is sufficient for nearly all web imagery, including high-resolution hero images and retina displays.

If you need to work with larger dimensions — such as satellite imagery, large-format print scans, or panoramic photography — use TIFF or a tiled image format designed for gigapixel-scale content (for example, Deep Zoom or GeoTIFF).

How Does WebP Compare to HEIC/HEIF? #

HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) uses the HEVC (H.265) video codec under the hood. It typically achieves better compression than WebP, similar in range to AVIF, and is the default capture format on Apple devices.

The limitations of HEIC for web use are significant:

Browser support is narrow — mainly Safari on Apple platforms; Chrome and Firefox do not render HEIC natively.
Patent licensing is more complex than WebP. HEVC involves multiple patent pools, which can create legal uncertainty for software vendors.
Tooling outside the Apple ecosystem is less mature.

For web delivery, WebP remains the more practical choice. HEIC is best treated as a camera capture format that you convert to WebP (or AVIF) during your publishing pipeline.

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