This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every hour between 1:00 am and 4:00 pm.
The Cron Job/Crontab
To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:
0 1-16 * * *
This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):
“Every hour between 1:00 am and 4:00 pm.”
What is a Cron Job & Crontab?
A cron job is a time-based task that is set to run at specific intervals. This can be anything from running a backup script every night to sending out an email notification once a week. Cron jobs are typically used for maintenance or repetitive tasks.
Crontab is a file that contains instructions for the cron daemon, which is a program that executes commands at specified intervals. Crontab files are typically edited with the crontab command, which allows users to create, edit, and delete their own crontab files.
Cron Fields
Every cron job uses five fields. Here is an explanation of what each field does in this cron, which runs “every hour between 1:00 am and 4:00 pm“:
FUN FACT: If you want to see what commands are scheduled in your crontab, type: “crontab -l”.
Use Cases
You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run every hour between 1:00 am and 4:00 pm for several reasons, including:
- Automatically backing up data at set intervals
- Checking for new software updates
- Generating reports
- Sending out reminder emails
Similar Cron Jobs
You might also want to run a crontab:
- every 9 hours
- every 7 hours
- every 12 hours
- every 1 hour
- every 2 hours
- every hour between 4:00 am and 5:00 pm
- every hour between 12:00 am and 10:00 pm
FUN FACT: Cron jobs are named after the Greek god of time, Chronos – so now you know where the name comes from!.
Wrapping Up
In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs every hour between 1:00 am and 4:00 pm. 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 cron job cheat sheet for a list of hundreds of popular cron jobs.