Possibility to convert to webp images that already exist?

Hi @frederic-pilon,

Good question. The plugin will only generate WebP versions of images that are upload after installing the plugin and enabling WebP images generation. It doesn’t impact pre-existing images, and there is no option to bulk process existing images.

There are other plugins that can be used to convert image formats or modify in bulk.

Let me know if you have any further questions on this.

Yeah, I was trying out the plugin as an alternative to Smushit that does WebP generation but needs a pretty precise server setup. (And doesnt do the primary color thing, that I find interesting too)

Might I ask: Is that functionality, to repass all existing images to add the Webp version when it doesnt exist, or add the primary color, etc. Is that a functionality that is in the pipeline for later?

There are no plans to provide a mechanism to generate WebP versions for legacy images at present.

In relation to the primary color query, if you’re referring to the plugins dominant color feature, this already applies to any image, including pre existing images. When images are loading, rather than a standard white image loader, it will use the most dominant color of the image to be loaded.

You can chime in with your own feature requests if you wish, over on the plugins GitHub repository.

Let me know if you have any further queries on this!

This may work post you regenerate thumbnails…

How?. For one of my personal projects, I have had a requirement to remove all my images including the thumbnails from the server, via going to the folder path – your-server-path/wp-content/uploads/ and re-upload only the original image files (removing thumbnails)

Once I upload the images back to the folder your-server-path/wp-content/uploads/, I installed Performance Lab, then I installed Regenerate Thumbnails plugin, and re-created the thumbnails, luckily along with the thumbs, webp is also created. (No plugin setting changes were done on both the plugins.

One thing I noted after regenerating thumbs is that, the original jpg file have created the webp version as filename-jpg.webp instead of filename.webp. And thumbnails are generated like filename-800×900.webp. (Only .webp thumbnails are created, No jpg thumbnails).

Personally I don’t prefer the filename-jpg.webp extension. This is something Performance Lab team a.k.a WP core team has to check. But the rest is fine.

This is my experience, but please proceed with the same in a test site before proceeding & always take backup e before for the test.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Sara.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Sara.

Nice workaround @kochi2ladakh.

From reviewing the plugins GitHub repository it looks like an integrated plugin solution for existing images is also in the works, see below:
https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/24