I’m not sure if this is the only way it works, but when I optimized an image and converted to the webP and then saved it, BSS deleted my original which I would’ve thought would’ve asked me to delete. Is there a setting somewhere to prevent this from happening?
Realized later that I had over optimized it, so I was going to redo it from the original, which thankfully I just did, so I have it around still, but it got me thinking that I need to know if it’s deleting my original images.
By the way, optimizing to AVIF would be a great addition! It’s a better, more modern format with similar adoption to webP. I usually handle AVIF optimization manually using Squoosh, and it works really well.
Optimizing images does overwrite the image, but you can Undo the optimization afterwards, so it isn’t destructive in the “I lost my original” sense. Still this is a valid concern, which is why we will implement some type of option in the dialog to save the optimized images as a copy.
Good suggestion, we will investigate adding this.
FWIW "Over the recent years, AVIF has become one of the most commonly used image formats on the web. "
ref: Supporting AVIF in Google Search | Google Search Central Blog | Google for Developers