Cron Every 5 Minutes
The */5 in the minute field means "every 5th minute." The job runs at minutes 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, and 55 — twelve times per hour.
Cron Expression
*/5 * * * *Field Breakdown
| Field | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Minute | */5 | Every 5th minute (0, 5, 10, 15, ...) |
| Hour | * | Every hour (0-23) |
| Day of Month | * | Every day (1-31) |
| Month | * | Every month (1-12) |
| Day of Week | * | Every day of the week (0-6) |
Variations
*/5 * * * *Every 5 minutes, 24/7*/5 9-17 * * *Every 5 minutes during business hours*/5 * * * 1-5Every 5 minutes on weekdays1/5 * * * *Every 5 minutes starting at minute 1 (1, 6, 11, ...)Common Use Cases
- System monitoring and alerting (CPU, memory, disk)
- API polling and data synchronization
- Log rotation and cleanup
- Performance metrics collection
- DNS and SSL certificate checks
Tips & Best Practices
This is the most common cron interval for monitoring. It balances freshness with server load.
*/5 always aligns to clock minutes (0, 5, 10...). Use 1/5 to offset if you want to avoid thundering herd problems.
At 288 executions per day, make sure your job is idempotent in case of overlapping runs.