diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 6e12153..5deb70a 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,4 +1,9 @@
 venv/
+__pycache__/
 .idea/
+# misc testing scripts
 testing*.py
+# i have a symlink here so testing scripts can import gpgmymail
+# as python expects `import gpgmymail` to be importing `gpgmymail.py`
+gpgmymail.py