What Happens When ImageMagick Doesn’t Support WebP?

  • I have a localhost WordPress development website and a staged copy of the website on a shared hosting server. When I upload a WebP image to the localhost website’s Media Library, the file sizes of many of the images created by WordPress are substantially larger than the size of the uploaded WebP image file. When I upload the same WebP image to the shared web hosting server, the file sizes of the images created by WordPress are always less than the file size of the uploaded WebP file.

    I have confirmed that the PHP ImageMagic extension in the localhost website DOES support the WebP file type. The ImageMagick PHP extension on the shared hosting server does NOT support the WebP file type.

    Is this the reason why the size of the WebP files created by the shared hosting server are always smaller than the uploaded WebP file? Does the shared hosting server version of ImageMagick simply ignore processing of the uploaded WebP file because WebP isn’t a supported file type?

    • This topic was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by Jan Dembowski. Reason: Moved to Fixing WordPress, this is not an Everything else WordPress topic
Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Moderator Steven Stern (sterndata)

    (@sterndata)

    Volunteer Forum Moderator

    It looks like webp will be the preferred image format in WP 6.0. See https://wptavern.com/performance-team-proposes-enabling-webp-by-default-in-wordpress-6-0

    If you have concerns, I think responding on https://make.www.ads-software.com/core/2022/03/28/enabling-webp-by-default/ would be helpful.

    How does one know if phh-imagick supports webp? See example.com/wp-admin/tools.php?page=health-check&tab=phpinfo

    Thread Starter Bill Vallance

    (@bvallance)

    Thanks, Steve, for the reply. The link to the pending WP 6.0 re: WebP was quite an interesting read.

    I have already used Site Tools to determine that the localhost website’s ImageMagick supports WebP and that the staged, hosted website’s ImageMagick does NOT support WebP. What I want to know is if uploading WebP images to a website where ImageMagick DOESN’T support WebP causes the generated WebP image sizes to be smaller than the uploaded WebP image (as expected). Essentially I’m asking if ImageMagick that DOESN’T support WebP simply creates thumbnails from the uploaded WebP image without attempting compression.

    Moderator Steven Stern (sterndata)

    (@sterndata)

    Volunteer Forum Moderator

    And I think the only way to know that is through testing in a variety of enviroments, and that’s outside the scope of the forum. But, since it’s a concern, be sure to share it on one of those documents.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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