diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 5ad5b805..34d707dd 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ __pycache__/
 build/
 develop-eggs/
 dist/
-downloads/
+#downloads/
 eggs/
 .eggs/
 lib/
diff --git a/downloads/.gitignore b/downloads/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..92a49902
--- /dev/null
+++ b/downloads/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+# Downloads folder is reserved for user-specific downloads.
+# Developer should not push local downloads to remote upstream.
+# All contents of the folder will be ignored, other than this file.
+
+*
+!.gitignore
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/downloads/data.txt b/downloads/data.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 033229c4..00000000
--- a/downloads/data.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,2 +0,0 @@
-This folder contains downloaded data from Aria2c 
-which is mapped to both Bassa API container and Aria2c RPC server
\ No newline at end of file