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Cron Expression Generator
العربية

Cron expression for every minute

The cron expression to run a job every minute is:

* * * * *

Every minute.

This is the most frequent schedule classic crontab supports: the cron daemon wakes up once a minute and runs every job whose fields all match. Because a new run starts every 60 seconds whether or not the previous one finished, wrap long jobs with flock (flock -n /tmp/job.lock command) so runs never overlap.

Test and customize this schedule

Format
Valid

5 fields (minute hour day month weekday), or 6 with seconds first. Names like MON-FRI, macros like @daily and full crontab lines work. Press / to focus.

English

Every minute.

العربية

كل دقيقة.

    Quick presets

    Visual cron generator

    Pick options for each field — the expression above updates instantly.

    Next 5 executions

    Local time:

      Cheat sheet

      *
      Any value
      ,
      List — 1,15,30
      -
      Range — 1-5
      /
      Step — */10
      ?
      No specific value (day fields)
      @daily
      Macro for 0 0 * * *

      Field-by-field breakdown

      FieldValueMeaning
      Minute*Every minute
      Hour*Every hour
      Day of month*Every day of the month
      Month*Every month
      Day of week*Every day of the week

      Copy-paste examples

      Linux crontab

      # crontab -e
* * * * * /usr/local/bin/my-job.sh >> /var/log/my-job.log 2>&1

      Kubernetes CronJob

      apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
  name: my-job
spec:
  schedule: "* * * * *"
  concurrencyPolicy: Forbid
  jobTemplate:
    spec:
      template:
        spec:
          restartPolicy: OnFailure
          containers:
            - name: my-job
              image: busybox:1.36
              command: ["sh", "-c", "date; echo Hello from cron"]

      GitHub Actions

      on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '* * * * *'   # always UTC

      GitHub Actions evaluates schedules in UTC, does not accept macros such as @daily, and will not run workflows more often than every 5 minutes; runs can also be delayed during periods of high load.

      Common variations

      Click an expression to load it into the tool above.

      Cron expressionSchedule
      Every minute, between 9:00 AM and 5:59 PM, Monday through Friday.
      Every minute, Monday through Friday.
      Every minute, between 12:00 AM and 6:59 AM.
      Every second.

      Frequently asked questions

      What does * * * * * mean in cron?

      Every minute. The five fields are minute *, hour *, day of month *, month * and day of week *.

      How do I run a cron job every minute in Linux?

      Run crontab -e, add the line * * * * * /path/to/command, then save and exit. Use absolute paths, redirect output to a log file, and confirm it runs with grep CRON /var/log/syslog.

      When will * * * * * run next?

      It depends on the current time and the time zone of the machine running cron. The calculator on this page shows the next 5 run times in your local time zone; on a server, cron uses the system time zone, which is often UTC.

      Related cron schedules

      Every 2 minutes */2 * * * * Every 5 minutes */5 * * * * Every 30 seconds */30 * * * * *

      Browse all cron expression examples →