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<h1>Batch Converting Images to webp with macOS Automator</h1>
<p>2021-10-15</p>
<p>A great deal of my time working as a web/UI designer is spent exporting and/or converting images for software products and websites. Although a lot of modern applications can render image conversions at build time, a custom conversion is sometimes requested for an image to be set as <code>webp</code>.</p>
<p>You <em>could</em> download one of the many native apps from the Mac App Store to do this for you - but why not create your own script and run it with a simple right-click directly inside Finder? <strong>Let's do just that!</strong></p>
<h2>Basic requirements</h2>
<p><strong>Important!</strong>: As of this time of writing, the official <code>libwebp</code> package release is <em>libwebp-1.2.1-mac-10.15</em>. If this has been updated since then, change the command below to match that of the proper release version.</p>
<p>1) First you will need to download the <code>libwebp</code> package to your Downloads folder: <a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/webp/download">developers.google.com/speed/webp/download</a>
- <em>Look for the "Download for macOS link"</em></p>
<p>2) Next we will need to copy the <code>cwebp</code> folder to our <code>/usr/local/bin</code> directory:
- Open macOS Terminal
- Run <code>sudo cp /Downloads/libwebp-1.2.1-mac-10.15/bin/cwebp /usr/local/bin</code>
- <em>Note:</em> if the <code>/usr/local/bin</code> directory doesn't exist, simply create it by running: <code>sudo cd /usr/local && mkdir bin</code></p>
<h2>Creating our custom Automator script</h2>
<p>1) Open the macOS Automator from the Applications folder</p>
<p>2) Select <code>Quick Option</code> from the first prompt</p>
<p>3) Set "Workflow receives current" to <code>image files</code></p>
<p>4) Set the label "in" to <code>Finder</code></p>
<p>5) From the left pane, select "Library > Utilities"</p>
<p>6) From the presented choices in the next pane, drag and drop <code>Run Shell Script</code> into the far right pane</p>
<p>7) Set the area "Pass input" to <code>as arguments</code></p>
<p>8) Enter the following code below as your script and type <code>⌘-S</code> to save (name it something like "Convert to webp")</p>
<pre><code>for f in "$@"
do
/usr/local/bin/cwebp -q 85 "$f" -o "${f%.*}.webp"
done
</code></pre>
<p>For visual reference, it should look something like this:</p>
<p><figure>
<img src="/public/images/automator.png" alt="macOS Automator">
<figcaption>(<a href="/public/images/automator.webp">link to hi-res image</a>)</figcaption>
</figure></p>
<p>And when right-clicking an image file in the Finder window, it should now give you the option to convert:</p>
<p><figure>
<img src="/public/images/automator-2.png" alt="Right click to convert">
<figcaption>(<a href="/public/images/automator-2.webp">link to hi-res image</a>)</figcaption>
</figure></p>
<h2>Making edits to your script</h2>
<p>If you ever have the need to edit this script (for example, changing the default <code>85</code> quality parameter), you will need to navigate to your <code>~/Library/Services</code> folder and open your custom webp Quick Action in the Automator application. </p>
<p>Simple as that!</p>
<h2>Possible Hiccups</h2>
<p>I was contacted by the very helpful <a href="https://kevq.uk">Kev Quirk</a> about a minor problem he encountered while following this tutorial. When trying to run <code>cwebp</code> he received the following error message:</p>
<pre><code>cwebp cannot be opened because it's from an unverified developer
</code></pre>
<p>Doing the next steps seemed to have fixed this issue for him:</p>
<ol>
<li>Click on the "Open in Finder" in the error message prompt</li>
<li>Double-click on the <code>cwebp</code> utility to open in Terminal</li>
<li>You'll then be prompted with a pop-up asking if you wish to execute</li>
</ol>
<p>After following these steps, the issue should be resolved.</p>
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