List files that will be installed by a Linux Debian .deb package not locally installed on your system.md

To list files that will be installed by a debian package (.deb) which is not currently installed on your system

# Ubuntu 15.04+ 
apt download <packagename>

# Earlier versions of Ubuntu
apt-get --download <package name>

# Inspect package with dpkg
dpkg -c <package_name_long_format.deb>

## Note: tab completion is your friend for getting the full package name. 

Example:

$ apt download getmail4 
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu zesty/universe amd64 getmail4 all 4.53.0-1 [150 kB]
Fetched 150 kB in 2s (65.7 kB/s) 

$ dpkg -c getmail4_4.53.0-1_all.deb 
drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2017-01-23 23:15 ./
drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2017-01-23 23:15 ./usr/
drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2017-01-23 23:15 ./usr/bin/
-rwxr-xr-x root/root     39670 2017-01-23 23:15 ./usr/bin/getmail
-rwxr-xr-x root/root      8613 2017-01-23 23:15 ./usr/bin/getmail_fetch
[... snip ...]