Cron Schedule Examples Explained
The five cron time fields look cryptic but follow a simple pattern: minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week. These examples cover almost every need.
Step-by-step
- Learn the five fields in order: minute (0–59), hour (0–23), day of month (1–31), month (1–12), day of week (0–6, Sunday=0). An asterisk (*) means "every".
- Every hour, on the hour:
0 * * * *— minute 0 of every hour. - Once a day at 2:30 am:
30 2 * * *— a good time for backups when traffic is low. - Every Monday at 6 am:
0 6 * * 1— weekly tasks like reports. - First day of every month at midnight:
0 0 1 * *— monthly maintenance. - Every 15 minutes:
*/15 * * * *— the slash means "every N". Use sparingly on shared hosting.
💡 Good to know
- cPanel's Common Settings dropdown fills these fields for you for typical intervals.
- Times use the server timezone — confirm it if exact timing matters.
- Schedule resource-heavy jobs for off-peak hours like the early morning.