diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index f41543abfc6fe6d3ccbfe172ce20e1c29b0d97c9..267e8c1c7bc48742a2e56b66af6720d63fbb1a74 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 arc/
-data/
 scrap/
 .vscode
 .txt
+# Ignore everything in this directory
+data/*
+# But not the directory itself
+!data/.gitkeep
+
diff --git a/data/.gitkeep b/data/.gitkeep
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..e69de29bb2d1d6434b8b29ae775ad8c2e48c5391