Cron expression examples

Copy a common schedule below, or browse 96 expression patterns grouped by timing and scheduler syntax. Duplicate URL aliases are not counted as extra examples.

Common crontab expressions

These use five fields: minute, hour, day of month, month and day of week. Add your command after the expression in your crontab.

Common schedules in five-field crontab syntax
Schedule	Cron expression
Every minute	`* * * * *`
Every 5 minutes	`/5 * * *`
Every hour	`0 * * * *`
Every 2 hours	`0 /2 * *`
Every day	`0 0 * * *`
Every day at 2am	`0 2 * * *`
Every sunday	`0 0 * * SUN`
Every weekday	`0 0 * * 1-5`
Every month	`0 0 1 * *`
Every year	`0 0 1 1 *`

For example, this entry runs a backup script every day at 2am. Replace the script path with your own command:

0 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/backup.sh

Check the timezone your scheduler uses. A 2am job can be skipped or run twice when the clocks change for daylight saving time. Standard crontab has no seconds field; six-field expressions belong to schedulers that support seconds, not a regular Linux crontab.

See the crontab manual for field ranges and timezone behavior, or use the cron expression generator to build and validate a schedule.

All cron schedules

Minutes

Hours

Days

Weekdays and weekends

Weeks

Months

Years

Other schedules

Maintenance

Seconds-based schedulers

These six-field expressions include seconds and do not work in standard Linux crontab.

Extended syntax

The # and L operators require a compatible scheduler. Each page includes a guarded Linux alternative where applicable.