Resolved Downloading Gifs is Broken in Monterey

[Huntn]

Is This a Bug? Downloading gifs becomes .webp?
When I had Catalina I could download gifs from online such as a dancing baby Groot: https://giphy.com/search/guardians-of-the-galaxy/

And now instead of a .gif, I'm getting something called a .webp and it's not animated.
Does this represent a transformation that has occurred with-in MacOS or online in general? Did web sites quickly convert all of their gifs to .webp or was it something in my Monterey upgrade that has caused this?
I own the Graphic Converter v10 and have sent them an email asking if v10 or v11 can convert webp to gif. And I've seen some products described as webp to gif converters but have not had a chance to play with them.
Does anyone know if there is a solution (download an animated give to MacOS and have it remain animated)?
Thanks!

 

[BaggieBoy]

Just change .webp to .gif. When I then open it in Safari it is animated.

 

[Huntn]

Just change .webp to .gif. When I then open it in Safari it is animated.

Yes, I see you are right.
How about if you pull the image into a word processor document?
Ok, at first I had warning messages about keep both .webp and .gif, but now it's allowing me to change it to .gif. 🤔

Of note I have a .webp file that if I double click on it, it insists on opening in Preview, no animation. If Graphic Converter is not even listed as a preferred app, but if I open it with that it says unknown file format. Now I'm in contact with the Graphic Converter author and he is adding .webp as a format into the newest version of GC. And finally when I drag this into something like Nisus Writer Pro, it has no animation either.

It seems like the issue is copying a .gif to a word processor document like Text Edit or NWP. The file loses it's animation when copied into them.

• So my question about .webp is this a new standard?
• Are sites posting images as gifs, but they are really .webp?
• Or is this something associated with Apple and Monterey?
• It just seems strange that with Catalina this was a non-issue, and after an upgrade to Monterey, now it is an issue.

Thanks!

 

[AlumaMac]

.webp is from google. Apple just recently added .webp support to Safari so it might be defaulting to .webp if available. I know that if I download a .gif in Catalina it downloads as a .gif but on my iPad the same .gif downloads as a .webp and changing it to .gif doesnt work in Catalina (no animation). I have to convert it to a .gif with a bash script. Applications will have to add support For the .webp format for them to display correctly.

 

[Huntn]

.webp is from google. Apple just recently added .webp support to Safari so it might be defaulting to .webp if available. I know that if I download a .gif in Catalina it downloads as a .gif but on my iPad the same .gif downloads as a .webp and changing it to .gif doesnt work in Catalina (no animation). I have to convert it to a .gif with a bash script. Applications will have to add support For the .webp format for them to display correctly.

Update: I have discovered as of. right now (subject to change) that upgrading to GraphicConverter11 solves the issue for me. Apparently there are word processors that don't play nice with .webp. If I download a gif from online, it may or may not appear as a .webp vs .gif. And if it is a .webp, it will not animate properly on some current word processors. At the Gify site I was downloading "gifs" that appeared as ".webp" in Monterey.

This was not an issue with Catalina, but is now with Monterey. If I try to open this .webp with Graphic Converter 10, I get a broken file screen with a bunch of digits. Changing the file suffix to .gif does not fix the issue.

However GC11, recognizes .webp. You can leave it as a .webp or convert it with GC11 into a .gif. and then it functions (animates) in text documents that might not yet recognize .webp. My 2 examples are textedit and NisusWriterPro.

 

[Nermal]

As for why this is suddenly happening: Websites are able to query your browser and ask "is WebP supported?". Since Safari in MacOS 11 and newer does support WebP, those sites give you a WebP file. Previously they gave you a GIF file.

Many sites refer to animations as "GIFs" even if they're not in GIF format, which doesn't help!

 

[Loa]

Besides converting every single ainmated webp images into a gif, is there a way to, either:
1) actually save those files as gif when we download them (ideally);
2) make those animated webp images work in Finder (using quick view) .

Thanks!