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How to Open WebP Files on Mac

macOS supports WebP in Safari and in the built-in Preview app on Monterey and later, but plenty of older Mac apps, third-party creative tools, and team workflows running on slightly older hardware still struggle with the format.

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Preview and Safari support WebP natively on Mac

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Convert to PNG/JPG for full macOS app compatibility

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No additional software needed on Mac

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macOS WebP Support Timeline: From Monterey to Sequoia

macOS added native WebP support gradually across versions in a way that mirrors but does not exactly match Apple's broader platform updates. Safari gained WebP rendering in version 14, which shipped alongside macOS Big Sur (11.0) in late 2020. Before that release, Safari on macOS Catalina (10.15) and earlier could not display WebP images at all, so websites that wanted to support Safari users had to detect Safari via user agent or feature query and serve JPEG or PNG fallbacks instead. The Preview application, the built-in image viewer on Mac that opens by default when you double-click an image file in Finder, gained WebP support in macOS Monterey (12.0) released in October 2021. Earlier Preview versions cannot open WebP files and either display a generic format error or open a blank document with no visible content.

Quick Look, the feature that shows a preview of a file when you press the spacebar in Finder without actually opening the file, also gained WebP support in macOS Monterey alongside Preview. On macOS Big Sur and Catalina, pressing spacebar on a .webp file in Finder shows only the filename, file size, and file type metadata with no visual preview at all. This can be disorienting when you are trying to identify which WebP file from a set of downloads you actually want without opening each one individually in a browser. On macOS Monterey and later, Quick Look shows the full image preview at any size including full screen, which makes triage and file selection across a folder of WebP downloads dramatically faster.

Third-party apps on macOS have adopted WebP at different rates and the lag varies by vendor. Adobe Photoshop added native WebP read and write support on macOS in the 23.2 update released in February 2022, with support for both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs. Affinity Photo added WebP read and write support in version 1.9, which shipped in early 2021. Pixelmator Pro on macOS supports WebP from version 2.1 onwards. Sketch added WebP as an export option in version 55 in 2019 but reading WebP files for editing directly remained limited until later versions. If you are on an older macOS, an older creative tool release, or a managed Mac where IT controls software versions, converting WebP to PNG using FixTools in any browser remains the most reliable approach across the long tail of Mac apps.

There is also a Finder behaviour to keep in mind. On macOS Catalina and Big Sur, where Finder cannot generate a thumbnail for WebP files, your folder of downloaded WebP images appears as a uniform grid of generic file icons. On Monterey and later, Finder generates proper thumbnails just as it does for JPEG and PNG. Converting WebP files to PNG with FixTools therefore solves the thumbnail and Quick Look problem at the same time as the application compatibility problem, which is particularly useful for designers and content creators who manage large folders of reference imagery and rely on visual identification rather than filenames. The converted PNGs also slot into Finder smart folders, Spotlight image searches, and any tag-based workflows you have set up on the system.

Safari release notes, WebP support history (Apple)macOS Monterey release notes (Apple)WebP image format (MDN Web Docs)

How to use this tool

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Drag your WebP file onto the FixTools Image Format Converter in your Mac browser and convert to PNG or JPG for universal macOS compatibility.

How It Works

Step-by-step guide to how to open webp files on mac:

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Open WebP in Preview on Mac
Double-click a .webp file in Finder. On macOS Monterey (12.0) and later, Preview opens WebP files natively, including files with transparency, and lets you crop, annotate, and export to other formats from File then Export. You can also drag the .webp file onto the Preview icon in your Dock or Applications folder if double-click is mapped to a different app on your system.
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View WebP in Safari
Drag your .webp file from Finder onto an open Safari window, or right-click the file in Finder, choose Open With, and select Safari to view it in the browser. Safari has supported WebP since version 14 alongside macOS Big Sur (11.0), so this works on every macOS release from late 2020 onwards. You can right-click the image inside Safari to save it in another format if needed.
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Convert to PNG for full compatibility
For applications that do not support WebP, including older versions of Microsoft Word for Mac, Photoshop before 23.2, older Affinity Photo, older Sketch, and various legacy creative tools that have not been updated, open FixTools in your Mac browser of choice. No installation, no Homebrew step, no Mac App Store visit, and no admin privileges are needed at any point in the workflow.
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Upload and convert on FixTools
Drag your WebP file from Finder onto the Image Format Converter upload area, or click the area to open the standard macOS file picker and choose your file. Select PNG for lossless output with transparency preserved, or JPG with a chosen quality level when transparency is not needed. Click Convert and the file is processed locally in seconds.
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Download the converted file
Click Download to save the PNG or JPG to your default Downloads folder. The converted file opens immediately in any Mac application that handles images, including Preview, Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Photoshop, Affinity Photo, Sketch, Pixelmator Pro, Microsoft Word, and any other app you regularly use across the Mac ecosystem.

Real-world examples

Common situations where this approach makes a real difference:

Mac user on macOS Big Sur opening a downloaded image

A Mac user on macOS Big Sur (11) downloads a product image from a supplier website to attach to a purchase order email. The file arrives as WebP and Preview shows a generic format error when double-clicked. They drag the file onto Safari to confirm the image is intact and looks correct, then open FixTools in a new Safari tab, upload the same WebP, and convert it to PNG. The resulting PNG opens immediately in Preview, Affinity Photo, Pages, and any other Mac application without requiring an operating system upgrade or any new software installation.

Graphic designer needing WebP assets in Affinity Photo

A graphic designer on macOS downloads WebP product assets from a client production site to incorporate into an Affinity Photo composite for a seasonal campaign. Their installed version of Affinity Photo predates the 1.9 release that added WebP support, and updating mid-project would risk file compatibility issues with their existing PSDs. Converting the WebP set to PNG in FixTools through Safari takes under a minute for the entire folder and produces lossless files the designer can open, mask, retouch, and composite in Affinity Photo without any format-related warnings or rendering glitches during the rest of the project.

macOS user inserting an image into Apple Pages

A macOS user drafting a quarterly report in Apple Pages tries to insert a chart image saved from a news site as a supporting figure. Pages on their macOS Catalina installation cannot render the WebP and shows a missing image placeholder along with a generic format warning in the side panel. Converting the file to PNG in Safari using FixTools before inserting resolves the placeholder error, and the image appears correctly inline across all devices where the Pages document is opened later, including iPad and iPhone viewers shared via iCloud.

Pro tips

Get better results with these expert suggestions:

Use Quick Look to preview WebP on Monterey and later

On macOS Monterey (12) and any later release, select a WebP file in Finder and press the spacebar to invoke Quick Look. The full image renders instantly at any size up to full screen, including for files with transparency, and you can use the same Quick Look pane to copy the image to the clipboard or open it in Preview for further work. On older macOS releases Quick Look shows only the file metadata, so upgrading to Monterey or later is the simplest path to system-wide WebP visibility across Finder and the rest of macOS.

Export WebP as PNG directly from Preview

If Preview can open your WebP, which it can on macOS Monterey and later, you can export the file as PNG without using any third-party tool at all. Open the WebP in Preview by double-clicking it in Finder, choose File from the menu bar, then Export, select PNG from the format dropdown in the export dialog, and save. This functionality is built into macOS at no cost, requires no Internet connection, and produces a lossless PNG identical to what FixTools would produce in the browser.

Drag WebP files directly onto Safari to view

On any version of macOS that ships with Safari 14 or later, which means every macOS release from late 2020 onwards, you can drag a WebP file from Finder onto an open Safari window to view it immediately at full quality. This works even on Big Sur where Preview itself cannot open WebP, because Safari's rendering engine handles WebP independently of Preview's codec support. Right-click the image inside Safari and choose Save Image As, then select PNG as the format if you want to save a converted copy directly.

Check your macOS version before troubleshooting WebP issues

Many WebP problems on Mac trace back to the machine still running macOS Catalina (10.15) or Big Sur (11), where Preview, Finder, and Quick Look lack WebP support. macOS Monterey (12) resolved most of these gaps and Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia continue to improve on them. Click the Apple menu and choose About This Mac to check your current version. If upgrading is not an option, perhaps because your hardware is older than the upgrade requirements, FixTools handles conversion in Safari with no OS-level WebP support needed at all.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Yes, on macOS Monterey (12.0) and later releases Preview opens WebP files natively, including files with transparency, and can export them to PNG, JPEG, TIFF, or other formats through File then Export in the menu bar. On macOS Big Sur (11) and earlier, Preview cannot open WebP at all and either displays a generic format error or shows a blank document with no visible content. If you are on an older macOS version, the simplest workaround is to open the WebP in Safari, which supports WebP from version 14 onwards, or use FixTools in any browser to convert the file to PNG before opening it in Preview, Pixelmator Pro, Affinity Photo, or any other Mac application that handles standard image formats.

Photoshop CC 23.2 released in February 2022 and every later version include native WebP support on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs, with no plugin installation required. For Photoshop versions before 23.2, including CC 2021 and earlier releases, you need either the WebPShop plugin from Google or a conversion step before opening the file. Converting the WebP to PNG or high-quality JPG using FixTools first is generally the simpler path because the WebPShop plugin needs to be reinstalled after every Photoshop point release and only works reliably when matched to the correct CPU architecture for your specific Mac, while a PNG opens cleanly in every Photoshop version ever shipped.

Open FixTools in Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Arc, or any other modern browser on your Mac, drag your WebP file from Finder onto the Image Format Converter upload area, select PNG as the output format, click Convert, and download the resulting file to your Downloads folder. No additional software is needed beyond your existing browser, no Mac App Store visit is required, and the conversion runs entirely on your own machine using the browser's built-in WebP decoder and Canvas API. The PNG you receive is byte-for-byte equivalent to what you would produce with a paid desktop converter, with no watermark, no quality reduction, and no upload of your source file to any external server.

On macOS Monterey and later, yes. Open the WebP in Preview by double-clicking it in Finder, choose File from the menu bar, then Export, select PNG from the format dropdown in the export sheet, optionally untick the Alpha checkbox if you do not want transparency preserved, and click Save. This route uses only built-in macOS functionality, runs offline, and produces a lossless PNG identical to what a third-party converter would generate. For older macOS versions where Preview cannot open WebP at all, use FixTools in Safari as the alternative, which works on every macOS release that runs a modern Safari without any version-specific limitation.

Yes. FixTools works in Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Arc, Edge, and any other modern browser on Mac. The image conversion runs locally inside the browser regardless of which browser you choose, so the resulting PNG is bit-identical across all of them and the user experience is also identical. Safari is the most lightweight option because it is preinstalled on every Mac and does not require a separate download, while Chrome users on Mac may find slightly faster batch processing on larger jobs because Chrome's memory allocation behaviour is different. All browsers handle single-file conversions in the same fraction of a second.

macOS Monterey (12.0), released in October 2021, was the first version of macOS to add WebP support in the Preview application and in Finder Quick Look at the same time. This change meant that pressing spacebar on a WebP file in Finder finally showed the actual image instead of just file metadata, which had been the behaviour on Big Sur and Catalina. Safari gained WebP rendering earlier, in version 14 with macOS Big Sur (11.0) in late 2020, so even on Big Sur you could view WebP files by dragging them onto Safari even though Preview itself could not open them.

Yes. Open FixTools in your Mac browser of choice, drag all your WebP files onto the Image Format Converter at once, either by selecting them in Finder with Command-click and dragging the group across, or by dragging an entire folder of WebP files onto the upload area. Select PNG as the output format and click Convert All. Once the batch finishes, download all the PNGs as a single Zip archive or grab them individually. This entire workflow requires no Mac applications beyond your browser, no Homebrew install, no Terminal command, and no admin password at any point in the process.

This happens on macOS Big Sur (11) and earlier macOS releases, where Finder and Quick Look do not include a WebP codec in the system imaging frameworks. The WebP file itself is intact and contains valid image data, only the preview thumbnail generation is failing because the operating system has no decoder available at that layer. You can open the file in Safari to confirm the contents are correct, then use FixTools to convert it to PNG, at which point Finder will show a normal image thumbnail just as it does for any other PNG file, and Spotlight will index it for visual search.

Yes. PNG has been supported natively in macOS since Mac OS X 10.0 in 2001, so any PNG file generated through the FixTools conversion will show a proper thumbnail in Finder, render correctly in Quick Look when you press spacebar, appear with a visible preview in the column view inspector, and be indexed by Spotlight for image-based search and Smart Folder rules. Converting a WebP to PNG on Mac therefore resolves not only the application compatibility issue but also the thumbnail and Spotlight issues at the same time, which is particularly useful when you maintain large folders of downloaded reference imagery.

Yes. If the source WebP contains an alpha channel for transparency, the PNG output preserves that channel exactly, with 8 bits per channel covering red, green, blue, and alpha. This means logos, icons, masked product cut-outs, and UI components with rounded corners or soft drop shadows convert cleanly into PNG files you can drop directly into a Pages document, a Keynote slide, a Pixelmator Pro composite, or an Affinity Designer layer stack without any background colour bleeding through. The PNG behaves exactly like a Mac-native PNG asset and integrates with Apple's colour management pipeline through standard sRGB tagging.