diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index aecda952..d6c1e4fe 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 .DS_Store
-frontend/
 */dist/*
 *.db
 *.db.lock
diff --git a/.gitmodules b/.gitmodules
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..41ab3862
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitmodules
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+[submodule "frontend"]
+	path = frontend
+	url = https://github.com/filebrowser/frontend
diff --git a/build.sh b/build.sh
index 89ee9981..ae818c56 100644
--- a/build.sh
+++ b/build.sh
@@ -5,16 +5,12 @@ set -e
 cd $(dirname $0)
 
 # Clean the dist folder and build the assets
-if [ ! -d "frontend" ]; then
-  git clone -b master https://github.com/filebrowser/frontend
-fi;
 cd frontend
 if [ -d "dist" ]; then
   rm -rf dist/*
 fi;
 yarn install
 yarn build
-
 cd ..
 
 dep ensure -vendor-only
diff --git a/frontend b/frontend
new file mode 160000
index 00000000..f5c48c96
--- /dev/null
+++ b/frontend
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Subproject commit f5c48c9679ef16f2d2dfb88d7cdcea929463f2ed