How to Install apt-file package on Ubuntu?
Last Updated :
09 Jun, 2025
Apt-file is a software program that indexes the contents of packages in your accessible repositories and allows you to search for a certain file among all available packages. Apt-file is a command-line utility for searching files in APT packages. You may search for which package a file is in or show the contents of a package without installing or downloading it.
In this article, we will show you how to install the apt-file
tool on Ubuntu and how to use it to search for files across all available packages.
Methods to Install apt-file on Ubuntu
On Ubuntu 20.04, there are three options for installing abs-guide. Apt-get, apt, and aptitude are all available. Each strategy of installation will be described in detail in the following sections. You may select any of them.
- Using apt-get to install
- Using aptitude to install
- Using apt to install
Method 1: Using the apt-get command
The following are the steps you should follow to install apt-file package on ubuntu using the apt-get command:
Step 1: Using the following command, update the apt database using apt-get.
sudo apt-get update
Step 2: After upgrading the apt database, we can use apt-get to install abs-guide by performing the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install apt-file
Method 2: Using apt
The following are the steps you should follow to install apt-file package on ubuntu using apt command:
Step 1: The apt database will be updated with the command below.
sudo apt update
Step 2: After upgrading the apt database, we can use apt to install abs-guide package by performing the following command:
sudo apt -y install apt-file
Method 3: Using aptitude
The following are the steps you should follow to install apt-file package on ubuntu using aptitude command:
Step 1: If you want to use this method, you may need to install aptitude first because it is not normally installed by default on Ubuntu. Use the following command to update the apt database with aptitude.
sudo aptitude update
Step 2: After upgrading the apt database, we can use aptitude to install abs-guide by performing the following command:
sudo aptitiude -y install apt-file
Examples of Apt-File on Ubuntu
Example 1: Display all Files
Display every file in every APT package that has the word "gimp" in its name.
apt-file search gimp
Example 2: Matched Package Only
Carry out the same search as before, but this time simply list the names of matched packages.
apt-file --package-only search gimp
Example 3: List Every Package
List every file with "gimp" in its name that is included in every package.
apt-file list gimp
Conclusion
The apt-file
tool is a very helpful utility on Ubuntu when you need to find out which package contains a specific file or command. This can save you time and effort, especially when you're trying to solve errors caused by missing files. In this article, we showed you three different ways to install apt-file
using apt-get
, apt
, and aptitude
. You can choose the method that works best for you. We also looked at some basic examples of how to use apt-file
to search for files and packages. Once installed, apt-file
can make it much easier to manage and troubleshoot your Ubuntu system.It is a great tool to have in your software toolkit.
Similar Reads
How to Install alpine package on Ubuntu? Alpine is a messaging tool that focuses on screens. Alpine includes a wide range of configurable "power-user" and personal-preference capabilities, but its default configuration purposely restricts the functionality it delivers to the beginner user. A variation of Alpine called alpine substitutes to
3 min read
How to Install Deb Files (Packages) on Ubuntu Installing the application on Windows is an easy task, as we just need to download the .exe file of the application and complete the installation in simple clicks, but the installation of the application on Linux or Ubuntu is quite different from Windows. We need to execute the commands and perform
7 min read
How To Install apt-mirror package on Ubuntu? This is a tiny utility that allows you to mirror any (or all) of the Debian and Ubuntu GNU/Linux distributions, as well as any other apt sources generally offered by open source developers. This tutorial will walk you through the process of setting up repository mirrors for Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 1
2 min read
How To Install apt-offline package on Ubuntu? Apt-offline adds offline package management features to Debian-based systems. It may be used to download packages and dependencies that will be installed later (or necessary to update) in a disconnected system. Packages can be downloaded from another connected PC. It may also get bug reports for the
3 min read
How to Install alsa-source package on Ubuntu? This package provides the ALSA driver source code. Using the m-a utility, the source code can be compiled into an alsa-modules package (available in the module-assistant package). Please keep in mind that the kernel headers are required to compile these modules. For additional details on loading and
2 min read
How to Install apt-listchanges package on Ubuntu? Upon collecting the appropriate items from the Debian changelog and NEWS files, the utility apt-listchanges may compare a new version of a package with the one presently installed and display what has changed. It may be run on multiple.deb archives at once to get a list of all changes that would res
3 min read
How to Install Python chardet package on Ubuntu? Chardet is the python module that is mainly used to detect the character encoding in a text file. Or we can say that this module is used to take a sequence of bytes in unknown characters encoding and try to find the encoding so the user can read the text. In this article, we will be looking at the s
2 min read
How to Install apt-show-versions package on Ubuntu? If you are using any Linux Distributions like Ubuntu OS, you should know the process to Manage & Verify Installed Packages there. And for that purpose, the Apt-Show-Versions Package on Ubuntu will be the best. With the Ubuntu Apt-Show-Versions Package, you can list down the Ubuntu Packages prese
4 min read
How to Install Pixeluvo package on Ubuntu? Pixeluvo is a gorgeous picture and photo editor for Linux and Windows that supports Hi-DPI displays, new camera RAW formats, and other capabilities. A commercial license is required to utilize it, and a license for Pixeluvo full version costs $34 and includes all future upgrades for that major versi
1 min read
How to Install apt-transport-https package on Ubuntu? Apt-transport-https is a fake transitory package; in 1.5, https support was relocated into the apt package. It is safe to remove. This is a fake transitory package; in 1.5, https support was relocated into the apt package. It is safe to remove. This is a fake transitory package; in 1.5, https suppor
3 min read