How to Open .WebP Files in Photoshop

WebP is a new image file format developed by Google. The main feature of this format is that it gives you a smaller file size compared to the conventional formats like JPG, PNG, and GIF.

The WebP format is good for its small size, however, when working on Photoshop, you won’t be able to open files with .webp extension and you will be shown this error message shall you attempt.

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But every problem has a solution and this one isn’t any different. With a simple workaround you can enable your Photoshop to open, edit and even save images in .webp format. So, let’s take a look at the following easy steps to do just that.

Opening .webp images in Photoshop

Download the WebPShop plugin for your particular operating system.

Unzip the package.
For Windows users, copy WebPShop.8bi (in bin\WebPShop_0_3_2_Win_x64) into C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop\Plug-ins
For macOS users, copy the WebPShop.plugin file (in bin/WebPShop_0_3_2_Mac_x64) into Applications/Adobe Photoshop/Plug-ins. Then enter your machine’s password to verify if necessary.

Quit or close and then re-open your Photoshop app.

That’s it. You should now be able to open, edit, and save images as .webp in Photoshop.

Troubleshoots for macOS users

If you encounter the message “WebPShop.plugin can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software.“, here’s a simple fix to it:

Click the Apple logo on the top left of the menubar.
Select System Preferences, then click Security & Privacy.
Under the ‘General’ tab, click Allow Anyway to allow running of WebPShop.plugin.