apt-file helps you find a particular file if you have to… say, finish a compilation and you don’t know which package it is contained in or just want to know where to find a certain file which is part of a package you installed.

To install apt-file, run below coomand:

$ apt-get install apt-file

Then we need to update apt-file database with:

$ sudo apt-file update

After some times, once the Contents files are downloaded from the repositories, you will be able to query the database for myfile or path/to/myfile with the following commands:

$ apt-file search myfile

or

$ apt-file search path/to/myfile

Listing the content of an uninstalled package can be done with:

$ apt-file list mypackage

Finally, you can delete the cache files with:

$ sudo apt-file purge