Chrome saves images as .webp because that is what the website sent. When you right-click and "Save image as," Chrome does not convert anything — it writes the exact bytes the server delivered, and the server delivered WebP. There is no hidden Chrome setting making this happen, which is why you cannot find one to switch off. The fastest fix is to save the file and convert it: our WebP to JPG converter runs in your browser, nothing gets uploaded, and a saved WebP becomes a normal JPG in seconds. If you want to understand why this started happening, or stop it closer to the source, read on.
Why Chrome saves WebP: content negotiation
Every time your browser requests an image, it attaches an Accept header listing the formats it can decode. Modern Chrome sends something like image/avif,image/webp,image/png,... — an open invitation. The server looks at that list, sees WebP is welcome, and sends WebP, because it is the smallest file it is allowed to send. Websites do this on purpose: WebP cuts their image bandwidth by a quarter or more (the birth of WebP explains why Google built it for exactly this).
Older versions of the same dance sent JPEG because that is all browsers declared. Nothing about "Save image as" changed — the menu item has always saved whatever arrived. What changed is what arrives. And the mechanism is already repeating itself: Chrome also declares AVIF support, so on some sites the saved file is now .avif — newer, smaller, and even less supported outside browsers than WebP.
You can watch it happen. Open DevTools (F12), switch to the Network tab, reload the page, click the image request, and check the response headers. You will see content-type: image/webp. The file was WebP before it ever reached your downloads folder.
Fix 1: save it, then convert (the reliable one)
Save the WebP, drop it into the WebP to JPG converter, download the JPG. The whole loop takes a few seconds, works on every website without exception, and — since the conversion runs locally — never sends your file to anyone's server. Collecting a whole folder of saved WebP files? Drag them all in at once and grab the results as one ZIP. The full walkthrough is in how to convert WebP to JPG.
If the image has a transparent background you want to keep, use the WebP to PNG converter instead — JPG would flatten the transparency onto white.
This is the fix that travels: a JPG opens for everyone you forward it to, which matters more than it sounds — why WebP files won't open is the most common follow-up problem.
Fix 2: edit the URL (works on some CDNs)
Many image CDNs decide the format from the URL. When you open an image in a new tab and the address ends in .webp, try changing it to .jpg or .png and reload. Some CDNs — especially ones doing on-the-fly conversion — will happily re-encode and serve the format you asked for; a few also accept a query parameter like ?format=jpg. Others answer with a 404, because the WebP file is the only one that exists.
Worth the three seconds it takes to try. Not worth building a workflow on.
Fix 3: make Chrome stop asking for WebP (increasingly fragile)
Since the server follows the Accept header, in theory you can make Chrome stop declaring WebP support. In practice the routes have narrowed. Extensions like "Save image as PNG" take a friendlier approach: they intercept the download and convert to PNG automatically, so the file lands on disk already converted. Extensions that rewrite the Accept header exist too, but some sites skip negotiation entirely and hard-serve .webp URLs — no header trick changes that. And anything that touches request headers breaks quietly whenever Chrome updates its extension rules.
If you go this route, test it on the specific site you care about before trusting it.
Fix 4: screenshot it (the last resort)
Yes, a screenshot bypasses the format question entirely. It also throws away the original resolution, any embedded metadata, and any transparency, and it captures whatever compression and scaling the page applied for display. For a meme, fine. For a product image you plan to reuse, you are better off spending the same ten seconds on Fix 1 — the converted file is the real image, not a photo of it.
The deeper reason all of this exists is that WebP is genuinely better for websites, so the supply of WebP files is only growing — and the same support gap is why WebP uploads get rejected by older forms. Until the rest of the desktop catches up, keep the converter one tab away: save the image, drop it in, and move on with your day.