Display specific DEB file content

Let’s say you need to need to check the contents of manifest.json out of a DEB file. To do that, identify the absolute location of the file with dpkg-deb -c

dpkg-deb -c google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
...
-rw-r--r-- root/root       238 2025-06-28 09:44 ./opt/google/chrome/MEIPreload/manifest.json
...

You can then use that in the command below. Essentially, this means that you’re getting the TAR file out of the DEB package, exporting the specific file from the TAR file and displaying it to standard output.

dpkg-deb --fsys-tarfile google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb | tar -xOf - ./opt/google/chrome/MEIPreload/manifest.json
{
  "name": "MEI Preload",
  "icons": {},
  "version": "1.0.7.1652906823",
  "manifest_version": 2,
  "update_url": "https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx",
  "description": "Contains preloaded data for Media Engagement"
}