Tools › Cron examples › every hour
Cron expression for every hour
The cron expression for every hour is:
What it does
Runs at the top of every hour (minute 0).
Field by field
| Field | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Minute | 0 | exactly 0 |
| Hour | * | every value |
| Day of month | * | every value |
| Month | * | every value |
| Day of week | * | every value |
Typical uses
Log rotation, hourly aggregation, or clearing short-lived temp files.
Watch out for
Writing * * * * * with just the hour field changed is a classic mistake: * 3 * * * runs every minute during the 3am hour, 60 times.
Add it to your crontab
crontab -e, then add:
0 * * * * /path/to/command >> /var/log/myjob.log 2>&1
Related schedules
every minuteevery 5 minutesevery 10 minutesevery 15 minutesevery 30 minutesevery 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