What a BMP file actually is
BMP is Microsoft's original raster format and in normal use stores pixels with no compression at all: three bytes per pixel, plus a header. A 12-megapixel photo lands around 36 MB. An optional run-length mode exists but is rarely produced.
BMPs turn up from legacy Windows software, older scanner drivers, industrial and medical equipment, and Paint on an ancient machine. New files in this format are almost always a sign that something in the chain has not been updated in a long time.
What you get from WebP
WebP output uses lossy compression with a quality control, but unlike JPEG it can keep an alpha channel at the same time — one format for photographs and for graphics with transparency.
Every current browser reads WebP; Safari joined in version 14 in 2020, which was the last real holdout. Desktop applications are patchier, so it is a format to publish in rather than to archive in.
What changes when you convert BMP to WebP
This is where the file size actually drops. A BMP stores its image without discarding anything, and WebP's lossy mode decides what the eye will not miss — typically landing 25–35% below a JPEG of matching quality, and keeping the alpha channel while it does so, which JPEG cannot. The catch is not visual but practical: WebP is a format to publish in, and a poor choice for anything you are handing to someone else's desktop software.
There is no transparency to preserve — BMP files do not carry an alpha channel, so every pixel is opaque to begin with. Converting to a format that supports transparency does not create any; it only means you could add it later in an editor.
Expect the file size to collapse. BMP stores three bytes per pixel with no compression at all, so a 12-megapixel image sits around 36 MB before anything is done to it. Re-encoding as WebP routinely produces a file a fiftieth of that size with nothing visible lost, because there was never any compression to preserve.