diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 932017f..657bd9d 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -161,3 +161,9 @@ cython_debug/
 #  and can be added to the global gitignore or merged into this file.  For a more nuclear
 #  option (not recommended) you can uncomment the following to ignore the entire idea folder.
 #.idea/
+
+# Ignore everything in the data folder
+data/*
+
+# But not the _.keep file
+!data/_.keep