Tools › Cron examples › every 5 minutes
Cron expression for every 5 minutes
The cron expression for every 5 minutes is:
What it does
Runs at minutes 0, 5, 10 ... 55 of every hour.
Field by field
| Field | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Minute | */5 | step */5 |
| Hour | * | every value |
| Day of month | * | every value |
| Month | * | every value |
| Day of week | * | every value |
Typical uses
Syncing data, refreshing caches, or sending metrics to a monitoring system.
Watch out for
*/5 means 'every 5th minute starting at 0', not 'five minutes after the last run'. After a reboot the schedule stays aligned to the clock.
Add it to your crontab
crontab -e, then add:
*/5 * * * * /path/to/command >> /var/log/myjob.log 2>&1
Related schedules
every minuteevery 10 minutesevery 15 minutesevery 30 minutesevery hourevery 2 hoursevery day at midnightevery day at 3amevery weekday at 9amevery 15 minutes during business hoursevery Mondayevery Sunday at midnighton weekendson the first day of every monthon the last day of the monthevery quartertwice a day