How To Install mailcap on Ubuntu 22.04

In this tutorial we learn how to install mailcap on Ubuntu 22.04. mailcap is Debians mailcap system, and support programs

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install mailcap on Ubuntu 22.04.

What is mailcap

mailcap is:

The mailcap system associates media types with programs that can handle them, using system and user configuration files. A file’s media type is determined by its extension or by running the “file” command if available.

Other packages register their programs as viewers/editors/composers/etc by placing mailcap entry files or FreeDesktop menu entries in predetermined directories monitored by this package’s dpkg triggers.

This package provides a “run-mailcap” program to open arbitrary files, and in addition the “see”, “edit”, “compose”, and “print” aliases to display, alter, create, and print (respectively).

This package also provides the “debian-view” utility to handle Debian packages interactively.

There are three methods to install mailcap on Ubuntu 22.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install mailcap Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install mailcap using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install mailcap

Install mailcap Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install mailcap using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install mailcap

Install mailcap Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install mailcap using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install mailcap

How To Uninstall mailcap on Ubuntu 22.04

To uninstall only the mailcap package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove mailcap

Uninstall mailcap And Its Dependencies

To uninstall mailcap and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 22.04, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove mailcap

Remove mailcap Configurations and Data

To remove mailcap configuration and data from Ubuntu 22.04 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge mailcap

Remove mailcap configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove mailcap configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge mailcap

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install mailcap package on Ubuntu 22.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.