diff --git a/BUILD.md b/BUILD.md
index bc298a2..8d7885d 100644
--- a/BUILD.md
+++ b/BUILD.md
@@ -5,6 +5,18 @@
 This section is intended to allow building with dependencies that have not
 made their way to mainstream systems. Important notes that may affect you:
 
+- Make sure you have all **required dependencies** installed. You can install
+them with your favorite package manager. These are:
+```
+autoconf autoconf-archive autoconf2.13 automake autotools-dev boost1.71 build-essential cmake curl git libbz2-dev libmagic-dev libnss-db libsodium-dev libssl-dev libtool shtool xz-utils
+```
+
+- Optional dependencies are :
+  - **lz4** for database compression: `liblz4-dev`
+  - **GraphicsMagick** for media thumbnails: `libgraphicsmagick1-dev`
+  - **jemalloc** for dynamic memory: `libjemalloc-dev`
+  - **ICU** for unicode tools: `libicu-dev`
+
 - Boost: The required version is available through `apt` as `libboost-all-dev` on
 Ubuntu Cosmic (18.10). All earlier releases (including 18.04 LTS) can configure
 with `--with-included-boost` as instructed below.