This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every 3 days at 2:30 am.
The Cron Job/Crontab
To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:
30 2 */3 * *
This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):
“Every 3 days at 2:30 am.”
What is a Cron Job & Crontab?
A cron job is a time-based task that is set to run at a specific interval. For example, a cron job could be set to run every day at midnight in order to update a database or send out nightly emails. Cron jobs are typically used for maintenance tasks that need to be performed regularly.
A crontab is a file containing commands and instructions for the cron daemon to execute. The crontab is used to schedule jobs (commands or shell scripts) to run periodically at certain times or dates.
Cron Fields
Every cron job uses five fields. Here is an explanation of what each field does in this cron, which runs “every 3 days at 2:30 am“:
FUN FACT: Cron is typically used for things like system maintenance tasks, running backups etc..
Use Cases
You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run every 3 days at 2:30 am for several reasons, including:
- Run a backup of user-generated content every three days
- Send out a newsletter to subscribers every three days
- Notify users of new updates or features every three days
Similar Cron Jobs
You might also want to run a crontab:
- every 6 days
- every 3 days
- every 2 days
- every 8 days
- every 7 days
- every 8 days at 5:30 am
- every 8 days at 11:00 am
- every 6 days at 9:30 am
FUN FACT: When configuring a cron job, you can specify the minute, hour, day of the month, month and day of the week when it should run – this gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of when your task will be performed automatically!.
Wrapping Up
In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs every 3 days at 2:30 am. Please share this page with friends and colleagues if you find it useful.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to comment below.
If you are looking for cron jobs that run at certain minutes, hours, days, weekdays, or months, or if you are looking for miscellaneous cron jobs, then check out our relevant sections, or visit our crontab cheat sheet for a list of hundreds of popular cron jobs.