How to Open WebP Images on Windows 10/11 [2023]

It’s 2023, yet, Some Apps and Operating Systems including Windows 11, Windows 10, and older don’t support WebP image format out of the box. This article reveals the best ways to open and view WebP Images on Windows.

What is WebP?

WebP is a new image format from Google. It Compresses lossy images like JPEG, PNG, and other image formats but still preserves the quality and resolution.

According to Google, WebP images are 40% smaller than JPEG images of similar quality.

Still, the world hasn’t adopted the WebP image format yet. There is no native support for this image format on Microsoft Windows 11 Operating systems with image viewers like Windows Photo Viewer, Photos app, and other image editing tools.

How to open WebP images in Windows 11 and Windows 10

As of now, WebP image format support is enabled and supported in modern browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Opera.

By downloading and installing WebP Codec for Windows, you can open WebP images in Windows Photo Viewer and their thumbnails in Windows Explorer on Windows 11 and Windows 10 without any issues.

Open and View Google’s WebP Images in Sumatra PDF Reader

WebP Codec for Windows supports Windows XP SP3/Vista/7, but we can confirm that WebP Codec works on Windows 11 as well after testing.

You can open and see sample WebP images installed in the WebP Codec directory with “Windows Photo Viewer”.

Installing the program with the complete option brings back Windows Photo Viewer to Windows 11 as well.

Do remember, that Microsoft has released a new Photos app for Windows 11 that doesn’t support WebP files.

Another alternative is to use the new Paint app in Windows 11.

How to Open WebP files in JPEG or another format with Paint in Windows 11

1. Click Start, type Paint, and open the app.
2. Click File > open and navigate to WebP file location and select it.
3. Click File and choose from PNG or JPEG or BMP or GIF or another format to save to disk.

Note: You can also open the WebP image by right-clicking on it and choosing the Paint option in Open with Dialog.

Download WebP Codec for Windows

Web browsers that support WebP on Windows

• Firefox
• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Edge Chromium
• Opera

Final words: If you have an extensive collection of WebP images on your hard drive running Windows 11, Windows 10, or older, just download and install the WebP codec, it works as WebP Viewer. Doing so, you’ll get Windows Photo Viewer, and the Paint app in Windows 11 as well as Photos App works too.