Cron Job Every 4 Minutes (Crontab)

This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every 4 minutes.

The Cron Job/Crontab

To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:

*/4 * * * *

This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):

“Every 4 minutes.”

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. The cron daemon is a program that runs in the background and executes tasks at specified times. The crontab file is used to specify which tasks are to be run and when they are to be run.

Cron Fields

Every cron job uses five fields. Here is an explanation of what each field does in this cron, which runs “every 4 minutes“:

Field 1: (*/4) indicates that the task will be run every 4 minutes.

Field 2: (*) indicates that the task will be run every hour.

Field 3: (*) indicates that the task will be run every day of the month.

Field 4: (*) indicates that the task will be run every month.

Field 5: (*) indicates that the task will be run every day of the week.

 

FUN FACT: The most common way to edit cron jobs is using the crontab command – this stands for “cron table,” and it contains all the information about when your tasks should be executed..

Use Cases

You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run every 4 minutes for several reasons, including:

• A background process that updates data based on information from an external source that is only updated every 4 minutes
• Checking the status of a long-running process and sending an email notification if it has been running for longer than 4 minutes
• Deleting temporary files that are older than 4 minutes
• Sending a reminder to users who have been inactive for more than 4 minutes

Similar Cron Jobs

You might also want to run a crontab:

• every 5 minutes
• every 27 minutes
• every 22 minutes
• every 13 minutes
• every minute between 3:00 am and 4:00 am
• every minute between 12:00 am and 12:00 pm
• every minute between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm

FUN FACT: If you want to edit your personal crontab, just type: “crontab -e” at the command prompt..

Wrapping Up

In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs every 4 minutes. 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.