Cron job every 4 minutes
Use */4 * * * * to run a cron job every 4 minutes. Check the expression and preview its next run times below.
This expression will run every 4 minutes
Quick presets:
*/4 | * | * | * | * | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day of the week (0 - 7) [Both 0 and 7 represent Sunday] | |||||
| Month (1 - 12) | |||||
| Day of the month (1 - 31) | |||||
| Hour (0 - 23) | |||||
| Minute (0 - 59) | |||||
- Asterisk (*) means "any" or "every".
an asterisk in the minute field means "every minute". - Comma (,) can be used to specify multiple values.
"1,15" in the minute field means "at 1 and 15 minutes past the hour". - Hyphen (-) defines a range.
"1-5" in the hour field means "every hour between 1am and 5am". - Slash (/) specifies increments.
"*/15" in the minute field would indicate "every 15 minutes".
Next scheduled times:
- Sun, Sep 6, 2026, 16:20:00in 3 minutes
- Sun, Sep 6, 2026, 16:24:00in 7 minutes
- Sun, Sep 6, 2026, 16:28:00in 11 minutes
Add this cron schedule to your crontab
Open your user crontab with crontab -e, then add the expression followed by the command you want to run:
*/4 * * * * /path/to/your-commandUse absolute paths because cron runs with a smaller environment than your interactive shell. Confirm the entry was saved with crontab -l.
Make this cron job reliable
Cron starts commands but does not alert you when a command fails or a scheduled run never happens. Add a heartbeat after successful completion to detect silent failures.
*/4 * * * * /path/to/your-command && curl -fsS --retry 3 https://oonchk.com/your-idRead the complete cron job guide for setup and troubleshooting, browse common cron examples, or monitor this cron job.