*/15 * * * *
Cron reads this as: every 15th minute.
Next 5 runs
These times are in your browser's local time zone. Cron itself uses the server's zone, which on most cloud hosts is UTC. If the difference matters here, see time zones & DST.
- Calculating…
When to use this schedule
It runs four times an hour, on the quarter hours: :00, :15, :30 and :45. This is the common interval for batch work that is too heavy to run every five minutes but too time-sensitive to wait for the hour, such as report aggregation, billing reconciliation and moderate-sized data pulls.
What to watch out for
*/15 * * * * and 0,15,30,45 * * * * are identical; use whichever your team reads faster. If you want this only during working hours, */15 9-17 * * 1-5 is the usual form. The hour range covers the whole of the 17:00 hour, so the last run is at 17:45 rather than 17:00.
The crontab line
*/15 * * * * /usr/local/bin/your-job.sh >> /var/log/your-job.log 2>&1Send the output to a log you will read. By default cron mails it, and on a host with no mail transport that mail is silently dropped. See the crontab guide for the surrounding syntax.
Related schedules
| Expression | Schedule |
|---|---|
0,15,30,45 * * * * | Same schedule, written as a list |
*/15 9-17 * * 1-5 | Every 15 min in business hours |
*/30 * * * * | Every 30 minutes |
Build your own
If this page doesn't cover the schedule you need, compose it field by field in the visual builder, or paste an expression you already have into the explainer for a per-field breakdown. The examples library has sixty schedules in one place, and the guides cover crontab syntax, time zones, troubleshooting and production practices.