Cron: every 5 minutes
The /5 step takes every fifth value of the minute field, counting from 0. The job runs twelve times an hour, on the minutes that divide by five, whatever time the crontab was saved.
Open in Cron Parser The expression is filled in: change it and watch the next runs.
Expression
*/5 * * * * Meaning
At every 5th minute: :00, :05, :10 ... :55
Next 5 runs
Your time zone
The same schedule on other platforms
| Platform | Written as | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Linux crontab | */5 * * * * | Five fields, in the server's local time zone. A % in the command has to be escaped as \%. |
| GitHub Actions | - cron: '*/5 * * * *' | UTC unless timezone is set. Five minutes is the shortest interval GitHub allows, and runs can start late under load. |
| Kubernetes CronJob | schedule: "*/5 * * * *" | Five fields, in the controller's time zone unless spec.timeZone is set (Kubernetes 1.27 and later). concurrencyPolicy decides what happens when runs overlap. |
| systemd timer | OnCalendar=*:0/5 | Its own calendar syntax, in a .timer unit, local time. hourly, daily and monthly match cron, but weekly means Monday. Persistent=true catches up on runs missed while the machine was off. |
| AWS EventBridge | cron(0/5 * * * ? *) | Or rate(5 minutes), which counts from when the rule was created rather than from :00. |
| Quartz / Spring | 0 0/5 * * * ? | Six fields, seconds first. Quartz needs ? in one of the day fields and counts Sunday as 1; Spring accepts ? and numbers days like cron. |
Common mistakes
5 * * * *is not every 5 minutesWithout the slash, 5 is a single minute: the job runs once an hour, at :05.
*/5counts from :00Not from the moment you saved the crontab. A job added at 10:03 first runs at 10:05.
Other jobs start at :00 too
Anything else scheduled on the hour starts at the same moment.
2-59/5keeps the five-minute rhythm but runs at :02, :07, :12 and so on.