Common Cron Expressions Explained

One page per expression: what it means in plain English, a field-by-field breakdown, the next run times calculated in your browser, the equivalent Quartz, AWS EventBridge, GitHub Actions, Kubernetes and systemd syntax, and the mistakes people actually make with that schedule.

Every N minutes

* * * * *Every minute

Run the job every minute of every hour of every day, the most frequent schedule standard cron allows.

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*/5 * * * *Every 5 minutes

Run the job every 5 minutes: at minute 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 and 55 of every hour.

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*/10 * * * *Every 10 minutes

Run the job every 10 minutes: at minute 0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 of every hour.

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*/15 * * * *Every 15 minutes

Run the job every 15 minutes: at minute 0, 15, 30 and 45 of every hour, every day.

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Hourly and every N hours

0 * * * *Every hour

Run the job once every hour, exactly on the hour (minute 0): 00:00, 01:00, 02:00 … 23:00.

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15 * * * *At minute 15 of every hour

Run the job once every hour at 15 minutes past the hour: 00:15, 01:15, 02:15 … 23:15.

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0 */4 * * *Every 4 hours

Run the job every 4 hours, on the hour: at 00:00, 04:00, 08:00, 12:00, 16:00 and 20:00.

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0 */6 * * *Every 6 hours

Run the job every 6 hours, on the hour: at 00:00, 06:00, 12:00 and 18:00 every day.

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Once a day

0 0 * * *Every day at midnight

Run the job once a day at exactly 00:00, the start of each day, in the scheduler's timezone.

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0 2 * * *Every day at 2:00 AM

Run the job once a day at exactly 02:00 (2:00 AM) in the scheduler's timezone.

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0 4 * * *Every day at 4:00 AM

Run the job once a day at exactly 04:00 (4:00 AM) in the scheduler's timezone.

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0 15 * * *Every day at 3:00 PM

Run the job once a day at exactly 15:00 (3:00 PM) in the scheduler's timezone.

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Steps vs fixed values

Most confusion comes from one character. A slash makes a step: */15 in the minute field means minutes 0, 15, 30 and 45. A plain number is a single value: 15 means minute 15 only. Steps always restart at the beginning of the field's range (minute 0, hour 0), so they line up with the clock rather than with when you deployed.

Don't see your schedule? Build and test any expression in the Cron Builder, learn the syntax in the cron expression guide, or browse the copy-paste cron examples.