JPG to WebP on Mac
Finder's Convert Image quick action stops at JPEG, PNG, and HEIF. Preview's Export dialog adds TIFF, PDF, and JPEG 2000, and HEIC and OpenEXR behind the Option key. WebP is on neither list, so a JPEG headed for a web page has to leave the Mac's built-in tools to get there. Press writes WebP through libwebp with a quality slider, and can run a folder of product photos in one pass.
- Drop the JPEG files onto Press.
- Under Image, choose WebP and set Quality. 80 to 85 percent is the usual range for photos; 100 switches to lossless, which comes out larger than the JPEG.
- Click Convert. Each file is written as name (Press).webp beside the source.
What you get
- Container
- A .webp beside the .jpg.
- Codec
- WebP through libwebp, lossy below 100 percent and lossless at 100.
- Quality
- A JPEG is already lossy; re-encoding to lossy WebP is a second pass. At 80 to 85 percent the WebP usually lands well under the size of the source JPEG. Set a Max size in pixels to shrink it further.
- Metadata
- EXIF from the JPEG is not copied and no color profile is embedded. Orientation is baked into the pixels first.
Which quality should I use?
Start at 80. Compare the WebP against the JPEG at the size it will be shown; go up if you see banding in skies or gradients, down if the file is still too large.
Does it keep the photo's metadata?
No. The WebP contains pixels only, which is usually what you want for a web upload.
Is this free?
WebP output is in Press Pro, along with AVIF, TIFF, batch conversion, and downscaling.
Press converts video and images on your Mac. The download is free, and Press Pro is a one-time $14.99 unlock for batch conversion, size presets, and WebP.