You saved an image from the web and got a .webp file. You need a PNG: your design tool doesn’t import WebP, you need lossless quality for editing, or the image has transparency and JPEG would fill it with white.
WebP to PNG is straightforward on a Mac. Four ways, depending on volume and whether you want to install anything.
Method 1: Picmal (batch, keeps transparency)
When you have more than a few files or need to do this regularly:
- Drag your WebP files into Picmal (or drop an entire folder)
- Select PNG as the output format
- Click Convert
Transparency is preserved automatically — if the WebP has an alpha channel, the PNG gets one too. Picmal preserves folder structure, so a folder with subfolders comes out organized the same way.
Best for: Downloading a batch of assets from the web. Converting design resources. Anything where you need PNG for downstream editing.
Method 2: Preview (free, built-in)
- Right-click the
.webpfile in Finder - Open With → Preview
- File → Export
- Set Format to PNG
- Save
Preview handles WebP input well on modern macOS. Transparency carries over to the PNG. The only downside is doing this one file at a time gets tedious.
Batch workaround: Select multiple files → right-click → Open With → Preview → File → Export Selected Images → choose PNG. It works, but Preview doesn’t give you options like resizing during the export.
Method 3: Terminal with sips
macOS has sips built in. No installs needed.
Single file:
sips -s format png input.webp --out output.pngEntire folder:
for f in *.webp; do sips -s format png "$f" --out "${f%.webp}.png"; doneFast, simple, scriptable. If you do this often, save the loop as a shell alias.
Method 4: Online converters
CloudConvert and Convertio both handle WebP to PNG in the browser. Upload, convert, download.
- CloudConvert: 25 free conversions/day
- Convertio: 100MB file limit, 10 conversions/day on free tier
Both upload your files to their servers. Fine for public images, not great for confidential work.
WebP vs PNG — when does this conversion make sense?
Converting WebP to PNG makes the file bigger. Always. PNG is lossless, so the output will be larger than the WebP source. Worth understanding when that tradeoff makes sense:
| Reason to convert | Worth it? |
|---|---|
| Design tool doesn’t accept WebP | Yes — you need it in a format the tool reads |
| Need to edit the image losslessly | Yes — editing a lossy format repeatedly degrades quality |
| Archiving for long-term storage | Maybe — WebP is well-supported now, but PNG is more universal |
| Need transparency that WebP already has | No — WebP supports transparency too, just keep the WebP |
| ”PNG is better quality” | Not exactly — if the WebP was lossy, converting to PNG doesn’t recover lost data |
FAQ
Does converting WebP to PNG improve quality?
No. If the WebP used lossy compression, those artifacts are baked in. Converting to PNG preserves them perfectly (losslessly), but it can’t undo them. Like scanning a photocopy: the scan is faithful, but you can’t recover what was lost in the copy.
Will the PNG file be larger than the WebP?
Almost always, yes. PNG files are typically 2-5x larger than WebP for the same image. That’s the tradeoff: you get a lossless format that every tool on earth supports, at the cost of a bigger file.
How do I keep transparency when converting?
All four methods listed here preserve transparency automatically. PNG has full alpha channel support. Just make sure you’re exporting as PNG, not JPEG — JPEG doesn’t support transparency and will fill transparent areas with white.
Can I convert animated WebP to animated PNG (APNG)?
This is a niche case. Most tools don’t handle animated WebP to APNG conversion. If you have animated WebPs, you might need to convert to GIF instead, or use a specialized tool like ffmpeg. Picmal handles static WebP to PNG; for animated formats, GIF output is available.
