WebP thumbnails in Windows Explorer

What you see

• Still and animated WebP files get a thumbnail in File Explorer and the preview pane.
• Press Space and an animated WebP plays frame by frame, honouring each frame's delay. Ctrl+S saves the frame on screen as a PNG.

Limits

• The Explorer thumbnail is a still picture; animation plays in Quick preview.
• In OneDrive and other synced folders, files stored on the PC get thumbnails as anywhere else. Online-only files are left to the cloud app, since nothing is downloaded just to draw a thumbnail.

More you can do

• Right-click Convert into writes WebP or lossless WebP in one click; the Convert dialog adds a quality setting.
• Strip metadata removes EXIF, GPS and other metadata from WebP files without touching the pixels.

Extensions this covers

See every format SageThumbs 2K supports or browse all format guides.

Thumbnails not showing?

• Windows caches thumbnails, and a file it failed on once stays failed. In SageThumbs, Settings ▸ Advanced ▸ Rebuild thumbnail cache clears the cache and restarts Explorer.
• Make sure File Explorer's "Always show icons, never thumbnails" option is off, and that the format is ticked in SageThumbs Settings ▸ File types.
• Run st2k doctor in a terminal. It only reads, checks the whole chain, and prints a fix under anything that is wrong.

Related guides

• AVIFAVIF stills and sequences, decoded without any Store extension.
• HEICiPhone photos, with or without Microsoft's HEIF and HEVC extensions.
• SVGVector drawings rendered as real thumbnails, SVGZ included.