WebP images with htaccess

This snippet detects if the browser supports WebP images and then serves a .webp image instead of jpg/png if a .webp file is available at the same location as the supplied jpg/png. Read more about the webp format and other ways to serve it here: https://images.guide.

Usage

Place the following in your .htaccess file and jpg/png images will be replaced with WebP images if found in the same folder.

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine On

  # Check if browser supports WebP images
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_ACCEPT} image/webp

  # Check if WebP replacement image exists
  RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$1.webp -f

  # Serve WebP image instead
  RewriteRule (.+)\.(jpe?g|png)$ $1.webp [T=image/webp,E=REQUEST_image]
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_headers.c>
  # Vary: Accept for all the requests to jpeg and png
  Header append Vary Accept env=REQUEST_image
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_mime.c>
  AddType image/webp .webp
</IfModule>

Preferred solution

Controling your files using htaccess sure if fun, but a more responsible way is to just use the <picture>-element instead of this solution. It has great support in all the major browsers and has a built in fallback for those without it.

<picture>
  <source srcset="/path/to/image.webp" type="image/webp">
  <img src="/path/to/image.jpg" alt="">
</picture>