diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 872011d..e48c01c 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -961,6 +961,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "usearch",
  "uuid",
  "walkdir",
+ "webp",
 ]
 
 [[package]]
@@ -5209,6 +5210,16 @@ dependencies = [
  "vcpkg",
 ]
 
+[[package]]
+name = "libwebp-sys"
+version = "0.9.6"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+checksum = "54cd30df7c7165ce74a456e4ca9732c603e8dc5e60784558c1c6dc047f876733"
+dependencies = [
+ "cc",
+ "glob",
+]
+
 [[package]]
 name = "libxdo"
 version = "0.6.0"
@@ -10882,6 +10893,15 @@ dependencies = [
  "system-deps",
 ]
 
+[[package]]
+name = "webp"
+version = "0.3.1"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+checksum = "c071456adef4aca59bf6a583c46b90ff5eb0b4f758fc347cea81290288f37ce1"
+dependencies = [
+ "libwebp-sys",
+]
+
 [[package]]
 name = "webpki-roots"
 version = "1.0.9"
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index 8aa9f3a..1262828 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ axum = "0.8"
 walkdir = "2"
 futures = "0.3"
 image = "0.25"
+webp = { version = "0.3.1", default-features = false }
 rust-stemmers = "1"
 sys-locale = "0.3"
 fluent-bundle = "0.16"
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 77fc43c..7cbca9c 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ The project is under active development. Core blogging workflows are broadly ava
 
 - Native Iced desktop workspace with localized menus, tabs, anchored editor popovers, automatically paged post/media sidebars, relative-dated entity lists with row deletion, dialogs, tasks, embedded Wry previews, and a live Pico CSS theme editor.
 - Post and translation authoring with change-aware draft/published/archive lifecycle, file-backed change discard, canonical draft reopening after manual translation edits, non-disruptive automatic translation, desktop archive/unarchive actions, in-place published-frontmatter updates, metadata, tags, categories, live link/backlink graphs, media, and batch gallery-image import.
-- Media import, thumbnails, metadata translations, filters, validation, post assignment, and sequential drag-and-drop insertion into post editors.
+- Media import, q80 WebP thumbnails (plus q85 AI JPEGs), metadata translations, filters, validation, post assignment, and sequential drag-and-drop insertion into post editors.
 - WordPress WXR migration with saved analyses, HTML-to-Markdown and shortcode conversion, conflict/taxonomy review, recoverable 500-item execution batches, media-parent linking, progress reporting, and optional AI-assisted taxonomy mapping.
 - Post, Liquid template, and Lua script editing with dedicated syntax highlighting, explicit syntax-check feedback, change-aware published/draft lifecycle, normalized collision-safe template/script slug changes, reference-safe template renames, and publish-time enforcement of the bDS2 Liquid tag/filter/operator subset, using a custom Ropey/Syntect/Cosmic Text editor and the documented, bDS2-signature-compatible project-scoped [`bds` host API](docs/scripting/API_REFERENCE.md) across utilities, rendered macros, and Blogmark transforms, including airplane-gated Git sync.
 - SQLite and filesystem persistence with frontmatter, relationship-safe media sidecars, rebuild, bidirectional metadata diff/repair including project categories and publishing preferences, stale post-path cleanup on republish, bDS2-compatible checksums and NFD slug generation, and FTS5 search.
diff --git a/crates/bds-core/Cargo.toml b/crates/bds-core/Cargo.toml
index bd18857..bd7bacc 100644
--- a/crates/bds-core/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/bds-core/Cargo.toml
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ unicode-normalization = { workspace = true }
 thiserror = { workspace = true }
 walkdir = { workspace = true }
 image = { workspace = true }
+webp = { workspace = true }
 rust-stemmers = { workspace = true }
 sys-locale = { workspace = true }
 fluent-bundle = { workspace = true }
diff --git a/crates/bds-core/src/util/thumbnail.rs b/crates/bds-core/src/util/thumbnail.rs
index 50b309f..288119f 100644
--- a/crates/bds-core/src/util/thumbnail.rs
+++ b/crates/bds-core/src/util/thumbnail.rs
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 use image::imageops::FilterType;
-use image::{DynamicImage, GenericImageView, ImageFormat, ImageReader};
+use image::{DynamicImage, GenericImageView, ImageReader};
 use std::fs;
 use std::io::Cursor;
 use std::path::Path;
@@ -101,13 +101,11 @@ pub fn generate_thumbnail(
 
     match size.format {
         ThumbnailFormat::Webp => {
-            // Encode as WebP via image crate
-            let mut buf = Cursor::new(Vec::new());
-            resized
-                .write_to(&mut buf, ImageFormat::WebP)
-                .map_err(|e| format!("WebP encode: {e}"))?;
-            let _ = quality; // image crate WebP encoder doesn't expose quality directly
-            fs::write(dest, buf.into_inner()).map_err(|e| format!("write: {e}"))?;
+            let rgba = resized.to_rgba8();
+            let encoded = webp::Encoder::from_rgba(rgba.as_raw(), rgba.width(), rgba.height())
+                .encode_simple(false, f32::from(quality))
+                .map_err(|e| format!("WebP encode: {e:?}"))?;
+            fs::write(dest, &*encoded).map_err(|e| format!("write: {e}"))?;
         }
         ThumbnailFormat::Jpeg => {
             let rgb = resized.to_rgb8();
@@ -325,6 +323,8 @@ mod tests {
         // 100x80 is smaller than 150 wide, no enlargement
         assert_eq!(w, 100);
         assert_eq!(h, 80);
+        let encoded = fs::read(&dest).unwrap();
+        assert_eq!(&encoded[12..16], b"VP8 ", "thumbnail must use lossy WebP");
     }
 
     #[test]