How to Save WebP Images as PNG

When is PNG the right output and not JPG?

PNG is a lossless format: it stores every pixel exactly, with no compression artefacts. Choose it over JPG when the pixels matter more than the file size.

If you have landed here because a download will not open at all rather than because you specifically want PNG, start with the WebP problem end to end - it explains why the file arrived as a WebP and lays out every route to a file your software will read, of which this is one.

That is the case when the image has a transparent background, because PNG keeps the alpha channel and JPG cannot. It is also the case when the image is going into an editor and will be saved again, since every lossy re-encode compounds. And it is the case for screenshots, UI captures and logos, where the artefacts JPG introduces around hard edges and flat colour are exactly where they are most visible.

How do you save a WebP as PNG?

With a right-click extension the conversion happens before the file is written. Several extensions do this and we compare four of them, one of which publishes its source and we do not. With Save Image As Type:

1. Install it for Chrome, Firefox or Edge
2. Right-click the WebP image
3. Choose Save Image As Type, then Save as PNG

The conversion runs through the browser’s Canvas API, so nothing is uploaded. Transparency survives: if the WebP had a transparent background, so does the PNG.

One thing to be clear about. What you get is a lossless copy of the decoded image, not a recovery of the original. If the WebP was lossy, its artefacts are already baked into the pixels and PNG preserves them faithfully. PNG stops further loss; it cannot undo loss that already happened.

If the image is a photograph you are going to send to someone, JPG is the better output and the file will be a fraction of the size.

How much bigger will the PNG be?

Expect it to be substantially larger, and expect the gap to be widest on photographs. Google’s own comparison puts WebP lossless at 26% smaller than PNG,[1] and for images with transparency it puts lossy WebP at roughly three times smaller than PNG. Converting in this direction gives all of that back, which is the trade being made deliberately.

What happens to an SVG or an animated WebP?

An SVG is rasterised, so it stops being scalable. The PNG comes out at the SVG’s own intrinsic size, not at the size it happened to be displayed at on the page, and an SVG that declares no size at all falls back to its viewBox and then to 1024px square. So a tiny icon in the page layout can still produce a large PNG, and a 1024px PNG is a hint that the file declared no dimensions. If you need it sharp at any size, you need the SVG itself, not a PNG of it.

An animated WebP loses the animation. The output is a single frame, because a PNG cannot hold one. There is no setting for this; it is a limitation, and it applies to animated GIFs too.

When is PNG the wrong choice?

• Photographs. JPG at high quality is visually equivalent and a small fraction of the size.
• Anything going back onto a website. WebP or AVIF loads faster, which is the reason the site served you a WebP in the first place.
• Logos and icons you control the source of. An SVG scales; a PNG of it does not.

For photos, JPG at 95% quality is the default in Save Image As Type, and it is the right default for that job.