50+ Cron Expressions You'll Actually Use (Copy-Paste Ready)

Every developer hits that moment: you need to schedule a backup, a deploy, or a cleanup script, and you're staring at five mysterious fields wondering what */5 means again. This is the cron cheat sheet I wish I had when I started. Bookmark it. You'll be back. Cron Syntax in 30 Seconds A cron expression has 5 fields separated by spaces: ┌───────────── minute (0-59) │ ┌───────────── hour (0-23) │ │ ┌───────────── day of month (1-31) │ │ │ ┌───────────── month (1-12) │ │ │ │ ┌───────────── day of week (0-7, Sun=0 or 7) │ │ │ │ │ * * * * * command_to_run Special characters: Char Meaning Example * Every value * * * * * = every minute , List 1,3,5 = at 1, 3, and 5 - Range 1-5 = 1 through 5 / Step */5 = every 5 units The Expressions (Copy-Paste Ready) Every X Minutes * * * * * # Every minute */5 * * * * # Every 5 minutes */10 * * * * # Every 10 minutes */15 * * * * # Every 15 minutes */30 * * * * # Every 30 minutes Hourly 0 * * * * # Every hour (at :00) 30 * * * * # Every hour (at :30) 0 */2