Melt guide

How to open, view, and convert WebP files on Mac

Someone sent you a WebP file and Preview opens it but you can't edit it. Here's how to handle WebP on macOS.

4 min read

You right-click “Save image as…” on a website and end up with a .webp file. Preview opens it on modern macOS, but your design tool won’t, your CMS rejects it, and your client wants it as a JPEG. WebP is great for the web — less great when you need to do anything with it locally.

What WebP is

WebP is Google’s image format from 2010. It does both lossy (like JPEG) and lossless (like PNG) compression and is roughly 25–35% smaller than either at the same visual quality. It also supports transparency and animation. Browser support is now universal, and macOS has supported viewing it natively since Ventura.

Opening WebP on Mac

Preview. Just double-click. macOS Ventura and later open WebP without any extra software.

Older macOS. You’ll need Quick Look plugins or a third-party viewer. The simpler path is to convert the file.

sips in Terminal. Recent sips versions on macOS Sonoma+ support WebP. Check with:

sips -s format webp photo.jpg --out photo.webp
sips -s format jpeg photo.webp --out photo.jpg

If your sips is older, it’ll error — fall back to magick (brew install imagemagick):

magick photo.webp photo.jpg

Converting WebP to something usable

To JPEG (photos):

sips -s format jpeg input.webp --out output.jpg

To PNG (graphics, transparency):

sips -s format png input.webp --out output.png

Multiple files at once: drop them into Melt, pick the output format, click Compress. Handles a folder of saved-from-web images in one drag. Download Melt.

Convert in Melt

  1. Open Melt.
  2. Drag your WebP file or folder in.
  3. Pick output: JPEG for photos, PNG if the WebP has transparency.
  4. Set quality (85 is a good starting point).
  5. Click Compress.

Going the other way — exporting WebP

If you need to create WebP files for your own website:

sips -s format webp -s formatOptions 80 photo.jpg --out photo.webp

Or in Melt, set the output format to WebP. WebP usually saves 25–35% over JPEG at matched quality — worth it for image-heavy sites.

What you lose, what you keep

A WebP-to-JPEG conversion is lossy on top of whatever loss is already baked in. If transparency is involved (animated WebP, sticker-style images with cut-outs), convert to PNG or GIF instead of JPEG — JPEG will fill transparent pixels with white. EXIF inside WebP is rare but real; most converters preserve it unless you ask otherwise.

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