How to generate a crontab schedule
- Choose how often the job should run: every N minutes, every hour, every day, every week, every month or every year.
- Set the time, the minute past the hour, the weekdays, the day of the month or the month, depending on the frequency. The cron expression is written for you as you click.
- Check the plain-English description and the list of next run times to be sure it does what you expect.
- Copy the expression and add your command after it in your crontab, for example
30 8 * * 1-5 /usr/local/bin/backup.sh.
Using the expression
On Linux and macOS, run crontab -e to edit your user's schedule, add one line per job, then save. The five fields are minute, hour, day of month, month and day of week. The same expression works in GitHub Actions (on: schedule: - cron: '30 8 * * 1-5'), Kubernetes CronJobs, GitLab CI schedules, Vercel and Netlify scheduled functions, AWS EventBridge (which adds a year field) and most job libraries.
Remember that cron uses the time zone of the machine or service, which is often UTC. GitHub Actions always uses UTC. The next run times here are shown in your browser's time zone, so convert if your server differs.
You can also edit the expression by hand; the explainer updates immediately.
FAQ
How do I run a cron job every weekday at 9am?
Use 0 9 * * 1-5. The 1-5 in the last field means Monday to Friday.
How do I see my current crontab?
Run crontab -l. To edit it, run crontab -e; each line is one job.
Why does my cron job not run at the time I set?
Most often the server runs in UTC. Check with date on the server and adjust the hour, or set CRON_TZ if your cron supports it.