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Cron expression for every 6 hours

To run a job every 6 hours, use the cron expression below. It means: On the hour, every 6 hours, every day.

0 */6 * * * On the hour, every 6 hours, every day

Field by field

Field Value Meaning
Minute 0 exactly 0
Hour */6 every 6
Day of month * any
Month * any
Day of week * any

Try it

minutehourday (month)monthday (week)

Presets

Next runs (your local time)

    Syntax on different platforms

    Linux crontab

    # crontab -e
0 */6 * * * /path/to/script.sh >> /var/log/job.log 2>&1

    GitHub Actions

    on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 */6 * * *'  # UTC

    Kubernetes CronJob

    apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
  name: my-job
spec:
  schedule: "0 */6 * * *"
  timeZone: "America/New_York"
  jobTemplate:
    spec:
      template:
        spec:
          containers:
            - name: job
              image: busybox
              command: ["date"]
          restartPolicy: OnFailure

    Spring @Scheduled

    // Spring has an extra seconds field first
@Scheduled(cron = "0 0 */6 * * *")
public void run() { /* ... */ }

    Note: cron runs in the time zone of the machine or platform. Servers and GitHub Actions usually use UTC; Kubernetes lets you set timeZone.

    More examples

    Open the full Cron Expression Parser →