The Next-Gen Image Problem
In an effort to speed up page load times and reduce bandwidth consumption, Google heavily promotes the WebP image format. WebP offers superior compression compared to traditional JPEGs and PNGs without a significant loss in quality. Consequently, when you right-click on an image in Google Chrome and select “Save image as…”, the browser will often automatically convert and save the image as a `.webp` file, regardless of its original format on the server. While great for web developers, this automatic conversion is highly frustrating for end-users, as many desktop image editors, older operating systems, and content management systems do not fully support WebP files.
Forcing Traditional Image Formats
Because Google Chrome does not offer a built-in toggle switch to disable this behavior and force images to save as JPEGs or PNGs, you must rely on browser extensions or specific workflow workarounds to stop the automatic WebP conversion.
The most reliable method to stop Chrome from automatically saving images as WebP is to use an extension designed specifically for this purpose. Open the Chrome Web Store and search for an extension like “Save image as Type” or “Don’t Accept image/webp”. Once installed, these extensions intercept the download request. When you right-click an image, you will see a new context menu option provided by the extension, allowing you to explicitly choose to download the file as a JPG or PNG, bypassing Chrome’s native WebP conversion.
If you cannot install extensions (e.g., on a managed corporate computer), a reliable workaround is to drag and drop the image directly from the Chrome browser window onto your desktop or into a folder. This action often forces the operating system to grab the original, unconverted file (usually a JPEG) from the browser’s temporary cache rather than triggering Chrome’s “Save As” WebP conversion protocol.