diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index c1c936e..1c77c05 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -7,3 +7,5 @@
 /dist/
 /htmlcov/
 /test/stage/
+.venv
+.idea
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/mike/commands.py b/mike/commands.py
index 6ed1ef0..c1313fc 100644
--- a/mike/commands.py
+++ b/mike/commands.py
@@ -96,6 +96,7 @@ def deploy(cfg, version, title=None, aliases=[], update_aliases=False,
         for f in git_utils.walk_real_files(cfg['site_dir']):
             canonical_file = f.copy(destdir, cfg['site_dir'])
             commit.add_file(canonical_file)
+            print(f"Adding {f.path}")
             for d in alias_destdirs:
                 alias_file = f.copy(d, cfg['site_dir'])
                 if alias_type == AliasType.redirect:
diff --git a/mike/git_utils.py b/mike/git_utils.py
index 54fac2e..2f92bed 100644
--- a/mike/git_utils.py
+++ b/mike/git_utils.py
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
 import unicodedata
 
 from enum import Enum
+from gitignore_parser import parse_gitignore
 
 BranchStatus = Enum('BranchState', ['even', 'ahead', 'behind', 'diverged'])
 
@@ -316,8 +317,8 @@ def finish(self):
         if self._pipe.wait() != 0:
             raise GitCommitError(self._stderr.decode('utf-8'))
 
-        if ( not self._allow_empty
-             and is_commit_empty(get_latest_commit(self._branch)) ):
+        if (not self._allow_empty
+                and is_commit_empty(get_latest_commit(self._branch))):
             delete_latest_commit(self._branch)
             raise GitEmptyCommit()
 
@@ -407,13 +408,27 @@ def walk_files(branch, path=''):
                        .format(branch=branch, path=gpath))
 
 
-def walk_real_files(srcdir):
+def walk_real_files(srcdir, topdir=os.getcwd()):
+    gitignorepath=os.path.join(topdir,'.gitignore')
+    gitignore = parse_gitignore(gitignorepath) if os.path.isfile(gitignorepath) else None
+    if gitignore is not None: 
+        print(f"Using Gitignore: {gitignorepath}")
     for path, dirs, filenames in os.walk(srcdir):
+        # if gitignore is not None:
+        #     if gitignore(path) is True:
+        #         print(f"Ignoring: {path}",file=sys.stderr)
+        #         continue
         if '.git' in dirs:
             dirs.remove('.git')
         for f in filenames:
+            
             filepath = os.path.join(path, f)
+            if gitignore is not None:
+                if gitignore(filepath) is True:
+                    print(f"Ignoring: {path}",file=sys.stderr)
+                    continue
             mode = 0o100755 if os.access(filepath, os.X_OK) else 0o100644
             with open(filepath, 'rb') as fd:
                 data = fd.read()
+            
             yield FileInfo(filepath, data, mode)
diff --git a/requirments.txt b/requirments.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3d07264
--- /dev/null
+++ b/requirments.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+click==8.2.1
+ghp-import==2.1.0
+gitignore_parser==0.1.13
+importlib_metadata==8.7.0
+importlib_resources==6.5.2
+Jinja2==3.1.6
+Markdown==3.8.2
+MarkupSafe==3.0.2
+mergedeep==1.3.4
+mkdocs==1.6.1
+mkdocs-get-deps==0.2.0
+packaging==25.0
+pathspec==0.12.1
+platformdirs==4.4.0
+pyparsing==3.2.3
+python-dateutil==2.9.0.post0
+PyYAML==6.0.2
+pyyaml_env_tag==1.1
+six==1.17.0
+verspec==0.1.0
+watchdog==6.0.0
+zipp==3.23.0
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 1ebfb37..6669bcf 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -89,7 +89,7 @@ def run(self):
 
     install_requires=(['importlib_metadata', 'importlib_resources',
                        'jinja2 >= 2.7', 'mkdocs >= 1.0', 'pyparsing >= 3.0',
-                       'pyyaml >= 5.1', 'pyyaml_env_tag', 'verspec']),
+                       'pyyaml >= 5.1', 'pyyaml_env_tag', 'verspec', 'gitignore-parser>= 0.1.13 ']),
     extras_require={
         'dev': ['coverage', 'flake8 >= 3.0', 'flake8-quotes', 'shtab'],
         'test': ['coverage', 'flake8 >= 3.0', 'flake8-quotes', 'shtab'],
diff --git a/test/data/directory_ignored/.gitignore b/test/data/directory_ignored/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4c33073
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/data/directory_ignored/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+file.txt
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/test/data/directory_ignored/file.txt b/test/data/directory_ignored/file.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c7c7da3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/data/directory_ignored/file.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+hello there
diff --git a/test/unit/test_git_utils.py b/test/unit/test_git_utils.py
index 89ae661..92424e5 100644
--- a/test/unit/test_git_utils.py
+++ b/test/unit/test_git_utils.py
@@ -796,11 +796,9 @@ def test_nonexistent(self):
 class TestWalkRealFiles(unittest.TestCase):
     mode = 0o100755 if sys.platform == 'win32' else 0o100644
 
-    def setUp(self):
-        self.directory = os.path.join(test_data_dir, 'directory')
-
     def test_walk(self):
-        files = sorted(git_utils.walk_real_files(self.directory),
+        self.directory = os.path.join(test_data_dir, 'directory')
+        files = sorted(git_utils.walk_real_files(self.directory, self.directory),
                        key=lambda x: x.path)
 
         path = os.path.join(self.directory, 'file.txt')
@@ -808,3 +806,12 @@ def test_walk(self):
             data = f.read()
 
         self.assertEqual(files, [git_utils.FileInfo(path, data, self.mode)])
+
+    def test_walk_ignore(self):
+        self.directory = os.path.join(test_data_dir, 'directory_ignored')
+        files = sorted(git_utils.walk_real_files(self.directory, self.directory),
+                       key=lambda x: x.path)
+        path = os.path.join(self.directory, '.gitignore')
+        with open(path, 'rb') as f:
+            data = f.read()
+        self.assertEqual(files,[git_utils.FileInfo(path, data, self.mode)])