WebP to Base64

Encode WebP images as compact Base64 data URIs.

Drag & drop a file here, or click to browse

Drop a WebP file here. Max 10 MB, converted in your browser.

WebP to Base64 Converter

Encode WebP images — lossy, lossless, transparent, or animated — into a Base64 string or a data:image/webp;base64,... data URI. The conversion runs entirely in your browser, and the preview shows exactly what the embedded image will look like.

What is WebP?

Google released WebP in 2010, based on the intra-frame coding of the VP8 video codec. It has since grown into a very flexible format:

  • Lossy mode for photos, typically 25–35% smaller than JPEG at similar quality.
  • Lossless mode (VP8L) for graphics and screenshots, often smaller than an optimized PNG.
  • Alpha channel in both lossy and lossless mode, so you can have a transparent photo — impossible with JPEG.
  • Animation, making it a much lighter replacement for animated GIF.

The file is wrapped in a RIFF container, which is why a WebP Base64 string starts with UklGR (the encoding of RIFF).

Why WebP is a good fit for data URIs

Every byte you inline adds 1.33 characters to your HTML, CSS, or JSON. Starting from the smallest reasonable file therefore gives the shortest string. A 6 KB PNG hero icon might become a 3.5 KB WebP, saving more than 3 KB of Base64 text on each page load.

Browser support and fallbacks

WebP works in all evergreen browsers today. If you still need to support very old Safari versions or email clients, use a <picture> element with a WebP source and a PNG/JPEG fallback, or provide both data URIs via CSS image-set().

Typical uses

  • Blur-up placeholders (LQIP) inside server-rendered HTML.
  • Small product thumbnails in JSON API responses.
  • Inline icons in progressive web apps and browser extensions.
  • Animated stickers where GIF would be several times larger.

For even better compression try AVIF to Base64; for maximum compatibility use PNG to Base64. To decode a WebP string back into a file, use Base64 to Image.

Frequently Asked Questions

All current versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, and Safari (14+ on macOS Big Sur and later, iOS 14+) display WebP, including data:image/webp;base64 URIs. Many email clients, including Outlook for Windows, still don't, so use PNG or JPEG for email.

Usually yes. Because Base64 grows the file by a fixed third, the smaller source file always wins. Lossy WebP is typically 25–35% smaller than an equivalent JPEG, and lossless WebP about 25% smaller than PNG.

WebP files start with RIFF, a 4-byte size, and then WEBP. A WebP Base64 string therefore begins with UklGR (RIFF), followed by characters that encode the file size, and characters 13–16 are always RUJQ (the letters EBP of WEBP), for example UklGRiQAAABXRUJQ. A WAV file has the same UklGR start but QVZF (the AVE of WAVE) in that position.