What are the five fields in a cron expression?

The five fields are: minute (0-59), hour (0-23), day of month (1-31), month (1-12), and day of week (0-6, where 0 is Sunday). For example, '30 9 * * 1-5' means 9:30 AM every weekday.

What does */5 mean in a cron expression?

The */5 syntax means 'every 5th interval'. In the minute field, '*/5 * * * *' runs every 5 minutes. In the hour field, '0 */5 * * *' runs every 5 hours at minute 0. The slash (/) is the step operator.

How do I run a cron job every day at midnight?

Use '0 0 * * *' to run at midnight every day. The first 0 is the minute, the second 0 is the hour (midnight). The three asterisks mean every day of month, every month, every day of week.

How do I run a cron job on weekdays only?

Use 1-5 in the day-of-week field (the fifth field). For example, '0 9 * * 1-5' runs at 9 AM Monday through Friday. Monday is 1, Friday is 5. You can also use names: '0 9 * * MON-FRI' on systems that support it.

What does the asterisk (*) mean in cron?

The asterisk (*) means 'every possible value' for that field. '* * * * *' means every minute of every hour of every day. It's the wildcard — it matches all values in the valid range for that field.

Cron Expression Examples

Type any cron expression below to see what it means. Click any example to try it.

Enter a cron expression

minhourdaymonthweekday

Common Examples

Click any expression to load it into the tester above.

* * * * *Every minute

*/5 * * * *Every 5 minutes

*/15 * * * *Every 15 minutes

0 * * * *Every hour (at minute 0)

0 */2 * * *Every 2 hours

0 */6 * * *Every 6 hours

0 0 * * *Daily at midnight

0 9 * * *Daily at 9:00 AM

30 2 * * *Daily at 2:30 AM

0 9 * * 1-5Weekdays at 9:00 AM

0 0 * * 0Every Sunday at midnight

0 0 * * 1Every Monday at midnight

0 0 1 * *First day of every month

0 0 15 * *15th of every month

0 0 1 1 *January 1st (yearly)

0 0 1 */3 *Every 3 months

0 8,17 * * *At 8 AM and 5 PM daily

0 0 * * 6,0Weekends at midnight

*/10 9-17 * * 1-5Every 10 min during business hours

0 3 1,15 * *1st and 15th at 3 AM

Cron Syntax

A cron expression has five fields separated by spaces. Each field controls when the job runs.

Field	Values	Description
Minute	0-59	Minute of the hour
Hour	0-23	Hour of the day (24h)
Day of Month	1-31	Day of the month
Month	1-12	Month of the year
Day of Week	0-6	0 = Sunday, 6 = Saturday

Special Characters

*	Any value	Matches every possible value for that field
,	List	Specify multiple values: `1,3,5`
-	Range	Specify a range: `1-5` (Monday through Friday)
/	Step	Specify intervals: `*/5` (every 5 units)

Tips

All times are in the timezone of your server. Most cloud servers use UTC.

When both day-of-month and day-of-week are set (not *), the job runs when either matches — not both. This is a common source of confusion.

Test expressions before deploying. A misconfigured cron job either runs too often (flooding your logs) or never runs at all.

Once your cron expression is right, make sure it keeps running.

Monitor with CronPulse →

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