jpg to webp converter

you are compressing something that was already compressed

this is the part people miss. a jpg has already thrown data away. converting it to webp doesn't recover any of that, it runs a second lossy pass over what survived the first one.

in practice the result is usually fine, because webp is better at the job than jpeg is. but the two compressors make different mistakes, and stacking them can produce artifacts neither would produce alone, most visibly as smearing around text and mushiness in fine texture like hair, fabric, or foliage.

the rule of thumb: convert from the highest quality source you still have. if you have the original png or the camera file, convert that to webp rather than converting a jpg you exported months ago.

webp quality numbers are not jpg quality numbers

the slider reads the same, but the two encoders scale differently. a webp at 80 is generally closer to a jpg at 90 than to a jpg at 80. so if you're used to exporting jpgs at 90 and you set webp to 90, you're leaving most of the file size saving on the table.

start at 80 for images headed to a website. move up to 88–92 only for hero images, product shots, or anything users will look at closely. going above 95 tends to inflate the file with very little visible gain.

one exception: if your source jpg was itself saved at a low quality, pushing webp higher won't repair it. you'll just spend bytes preserving the original jpg's artifacts in more detail.

before you replace the originals

a short check that takes a minute and has saved a lot of people from re-shooting:

1. 1. convert one representative image first, not the whole folder. pick the busiest one you have.
2. 2. open the original and the webp side by side at 100%, not zoomed out. zoomed out, everything looks fine.
3. 3. look specifically at text, edges against flat backgrounds, and any large smooth gradient like a sky.
4. 4. compare the file sizes. if you saved 12%, the conversion may not be worth the trouble. if you saved 60%, batch the rest.
5. 5. keep the originals somewhere. this conversion is one directional in practice.

when the conversion misbehaves

metadata is dropped

the conversion redraws your image through a canvas and encodes the pixels, so exif fields don't survive the trip. capture date, camera body, lens, exposure settings, and gps coordinates are all absent from the webp.

worth knowing in both directions: it's convenient if you're publishing photos and don't want your home address embedded in them, and it's a problem if you were relying on those fields to sort or catalogue your library. archive the jpgs before you batch convert.

what this converter will and won't take

animated webp output isn't produced here, and gif input isn't accepted. this converter handles still images.