ubuntu

Dear Diary: How to enable webp previews in Ubuntu 22.04

William Raendchen

William Raendchen

— 1 min read

I find myself needing to work with .webp files a lot recently. The default file browser (Nautilus) in Ubuntu 22.04 does not have previews.

Enable webp previews

To change that you can install webp-pixbuf-loader. As always, adding a 3rd party repo is risky, so think about whether you want to do it.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:helkaluin/webp-pixbuf-loader
sudo apt update
sudo apt install webp-pixbuf-loader

For me, this enabled webp previews instantly, even without having to close Nautilus.

Source: https://www.omglinux.com/see-webp-images-in-nautilus-and-other-gtk-apps/

Change default webp viewer

Now I have previews, but when opening wepb files they add a new Chrome tab every time. It turns out, the inbuilt file viewer (eog) in Ubuntu 22.04 can already handle webp files. Your just have to:

  • Right click a webp file
  • Select Properties
  • Select the "Open With" tab
  • Select "Image Viewer"
  • In the bottom right, click "Set as default"

Now, when double clicking a webp file, it should open in the image viewer, just like your png and jpg files.

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