diff --git a/webknossos/poetry.lock b/webknossos/poetry.lock
index 3dc0b25e5..c57c151af 100644
--- a/webknossos/poetry.lock
+++ b/webknossos/poetry.lock
@@ -178,16 +178,6 @@ doc = ["Sphinx (>=6.1.0)", "packaging", "sphinx-autodoc-typehints (>=1.2.0)", "s
 test = ["anyio[trio]", "coverage[toml] (>=4.5)", "hypothesis (>=4.0)", "mock (>=4)", "psutil (>=5.9)", "pytest (>=7.0)", "pytest-mock (>=3.6.1)", "trustme", "uvloop (>=0.17)"]
 trio = ["trio (<0.22)"]
 
-[[package]]
-name = "asciitree"
-version = "0.3.3"
-description = "Draws ASCII trees."
-optional = false
-python-versions = "*"
-files = [
-    {file = "asciitree-0.3.3.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:4aa4b9b649f85e3fcb343363d97564aa1fb62e249677f2e18a96765145cc0f6e"},
-]
-
 [[package]]
 name = "astroid"
 version = "2.15.5"
@@ -807,17 +797,6 @@ files = [
 [package.extras]
 tests = ["asttokens", "littleutils", "pytest", "rich"]
 
-[[package]]
-name = "fasteners"
-version = "0.19"
-description = "A python package that provides useful locks"
-optional = false
-python-versions = ">=3.6"
-files = [
-    {file = "fasteners-0.19-py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:758819cb5d94cdedf4e836988b74de396ceacb8e2794d21f82d131fd9ee77237"},
-    {file = "fasteners-0.19.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:b4f37c3ac52d8a445af3a66bce57b33b5e90b97c696b7b984f530cf8f0ded09c"},
-]
-
 [[package]]
 name = "fastremap"
 version = "1.13.5"
@@ -3332,27 +3311,6 @@ files = [
 idna = ">=2.0"
 multidict = ">=4.0"
 
-[[package]]
-name = "zarr"
-version = "2.16.1"
-description = "An implementation of chunked, compressed, N-dimensional arrays for Python"
-optional = false
-python-versions = ">=3.8"
-files = [
-    {file = "zarr-2.16.1-py3-none-any.whl", hash = "sha256:de4882433ccb5b42cc1ec9872b95e64ca3a13581424666b28ed265ad76c7056f"},
-    {file = "zarr-2.16.1.tar.gz", hash = "sha256:4276cf4b4a653431042cd53ff2282bc4d292a6842411e88529964504fb073286"},
-]
-
-[package.dependencies]
-asciitree = "*"
-fasteners = "*"
-numcodecs = ">=0.10.0"
-numpy = ">=1.20,<1.21.0 || >1.21.0"
-
-[package.extras]
-docs = ["numcodecs[msgpack]", "numpydoc", "pydata-sphinx-theme", "sphinx", "sphinx-copybutton", "sphinx-design", "sphinx-issues", "sphinx-rtd-theme"]
-jupyter = ["ipytree (>=0.2.2)", "ipywidgets (>=8.0.0)", "notebook"]
-
 [[package]]
 name = "zarrita"
 version = "0.1.0a19"
@@ -3457,4 +3415,4 @@ tifffile = ["pims", "tifffile"]
 [metadata]
 lock-version = "2.0"
 python-versions = ">=3.8,<3.12"
-content-hash = "07329ab67ad02075ece09a3684ec64abdc370e740d59135e2f77be1e4954ade8"
+content-hash = "e55e790064268bdba90de4ca608a1b15edaeed4c26233e9c0b2806815c4d23c5"
diff --git a/webknossos/pyproject.toml b/webknossos/pyproject.toml
index fbe19d07d..c9de52e4a 100644
--- a/webknossos/pyproject.toml
+++ b/webknossos/pyproject.toml
@@ -54,7 +54,6 @@ typer = {extras = ["all"], version = "^0.9.0"}
 typing-extensions = "^4.0"
 universal-pathlib = "0.1.3"
 wkw = "1.1.22"
-zarr = "^2.16.1"
 zipp = "^3.5.0"
 
 # A list of all of the optional dependencies, some of which are included in the
diff --git a/webknossos/webknossos/cli/convert_zarr.py b/webknossos/webknossos/cli/convert_zarr.py
index d2f771311..4bb951c94 100644
--- a/webknossos/webknossos/cli/convert_zarr.py
+++ b/webknossos/webknossos/cli/convert_zarr.py
@@ -9,11 +9,9 @@
 from typing import Any, Dict, Optional, Tuple, Union, cast
 
 import numpy as np
+import tensorstore
 import typer
-import zarr
 from typing_extensions import Annotated
-from upath import UPath
-from zarr.storage import FSStore
 
 from webknossos import (
     BoundingBox,
@@ -34,19 +32,16 @@
     parse_voxel_size,
 )
 from webknossos.dataset.defaults import DEFAULT_CHUNK_SHAPE, DEFAULT_CHUNKS_PER_SHARD
-from webknossos.utils import get_executor_for_args, wait_and_ensure_success
+from webknossos.utils import get_executor_for_args, is_fs_path, wait_and_ensure_success
 
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
 
-def _fsstore_from_path(path: Path, mode: str = "a") -> FSStore:
-    storage_options: Dict[str, Any] = {}
-    if isinstance(path, UPath):
-        storage_options = getattr(path, "_kwargs", {}).copy()
-        storage_options.pop("_url", None)
-        return FSStore(url=str(path), mode=mode, **storage_options)
-
-    return FSStore(url=str(path), mode=mode, **storage_options)
+def _make_kvstore(path: Path) -> Union[str, Dict[str, str]]:
+    if is_fs_path(path):
+        return {"driver": "file", "path": str(path)}
+    else:
+        return str(path)
 
 
 def _zarr_chunk_converter(
@@ -58,8 +53,13 @@ def _zarr_chunk_converter(
     logging.info("Conversion of %s", bounding_box.topleft)
 
     slices = bounding_box.to_slices()
-    zarr_file = zarr.open(store=_fsstore_from_path(source_zarr_path), mode="r")
-    source_data: Any = zarr_file[slices][None, ...]
+    zarr_file = tensorstore.open(
+        {
+            "driver": "zarr",
+            "kvstore": _make_kvstore(source_zarr_path),
+        }
+    ).result()
+    source_data: Any = zarr_file[slices].read().result()[None, ...]
 
     if flip_axes:
         source_data = np.flip(source_data, flip_axes)
@@ -86,8 +86,13 @@ def convert_zarr(
     """Performs the conversation of a Zarr dataset to a WEBKNOSSOS dataset."""
     ref_time = time.time()
 
-    file = zarr.open(store=_fsstore_from_path(source_zarr_path), mode="r")
-    input_dtype: Any = file.dtype
+    file = tensorstore.open(
+        {
+            "driver": "zarr",
+            "kvstore": _make_kvstore(source_zarr_path),
+        }
+    ).result()
+    input_dtype: Any = file.dtype.numpy_dtype
     shape: Any = file.shape
 
     if voxel_size is None: