Cron Expression Examples: 20 Real Schedules Explained
Cron syntax is compact and unforgiving. This is a list of expressions people actually deploy, with the intent stated plainly.
Last reviewed: 2026-08-03
The five fields
Standard Unix cron is five space-separated fields: minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week.
* * * * * command
| | | | |
| | | | +--- day of week (0-6)
| | | +----- month (1-12)
| | +------- day of month (1-31)
| +--------- hour (0-23)
+ ----------- minute (0-59)Common schedules
*/5 * * * * every 5 minutes
0 * * * * every hour
0 9 * * * 9am every day
0 9 * * 1-5 9am weekdays
*/15 9-17 * * 1-5 every 15 min, 9am-5pm weekdays
0 0 1 * * midnight on the 1st