This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run every 15 minutes (every quarter of an hour).
The Cron Job/Crontab
To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:
*/15 * * * *
This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):
“Every 15 minutes.”
What is a Cron Job & Crontab?
A cron job is a task that is scheduled to run at a specific time or interval. Cron jobs are typically used for automating tasks, such as running backups or sending emails.
A crontab is a file that contains commands to be run at specified times. The crontab file is typically edited using the crontab command, which can be used to list, edit, or delete the contents of the file.
Cron Fields
Every cron job uses five fields. Here is an explanation of what each field does in this cron, which runs “every 15 minutes“:
FUN FACT: If you want to edit your personal crontab, just type: “crontab -e” at the command prompt..
Use Cases
You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run every 15 minutes for several reasons, including:
- Running a backup every 15 minutes
- Checking for new email every 15 minutes
- Refreshing data from an external API every 15 minutes
Similar Cron Jobs
You might also want to run a crontab:
- every 9 minutes
- every 10 minutes
- every 18 minutes
- every 16 minutes
- every minute
- every 2 minutes
- every minute between 4:00 am and 10:00 pm
- every minute between 12:00 pm and 2:00 pm
- every minute between 5:00 pm and 6:00 pm
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 15 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 crontab cheat sheet for a list of hundreds of popular cron jobs.