diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index af74f1e7..eaf66084 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -3,6 +3,10 @@ Thumbs.db
 .idea
 tmp
 
+# composer
+composer.lock
+vendor
+
 releases
 config.local.php
 PERSONAL_NOTES
diff --git a/common.php b/common.php
index a97a6be5..415c3d1e 100644
--- a/common.php
+++ b/common.php
@@ -67,6 +67,7 @@ define('PAGES', SYSTEM . 'pages/');
 define('PLUGINS', BASE . 'plugins/');
 define('TEMPLATES', BASE . 'templates/');
 define('TOOLS', BASE . 'tools/');
+define('VENDOR', BASE . 'vendor/');
 
 // menu categories
 define('MENU_CATEGORY_NEWS', 1);
@@ -115,4 +116,10 @@ if(!IS_CLI) {
 
 	require SYSTEM . 'exception.php';
 }
-require SYSTEM . 'autoload.php';
+
+$autoloadFile = VENDOR . 'autoload.php';
+if (!is_file($autoloadFile)) {
+	throw new RuntimeException('The vendor folder is missing. Please download Composer: <a href="https://getcomposer.org/download">https://getcomposer.org/download</a>, install it and execute in the main MyAAC directory this command: <b>composer install</b>. Or download MyAAC from <a href="https://github.com/slawkens/myaac/releases">GitHub releases</a>, which includes Vendor folder.');
+}
+
+require $autoloadFile;
diff --git a/composer.json b/composer.json
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..d91b02ee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/composer.json
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+{
+    "require": {
+        "phpmailer/phpmailer": "^6.1",
+        "composer/semver": "^3.2",
+        "twig/twig": "~1.42.5"
+    }
+}