Cron Four Times a Day
Run a cron job four times a day at midnight, 6 AM, noon, and 6 PM with 0 0,6,12,18 * * *. Full field breakdown and real-world examples.
Cron Expression
0 0,6,12,18 * * *
Field Breakdown
| Field | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Minute | 0 | At 0 |
| Hour | 0,6,12,18 | At 0, 6, 12, 18 |
| Day of Month | * | Every day of the month (1–31) |
| Month | * | Every month (1–12) |
| Day of Week | * | Every day of the week (Sun–Sat) |
Detailed Explanation
The cron expression 0 0,6,12,18 * * * schedules a task to run four times per day, at midnight, 6:00 AM, noon, and 6:00 PM.
Field-by-field breakdown:
0(Minute): At minute 0. The task fires at the start of each specified hour.0,6,12,18(Hour): At hours 0, 6, 12, and 18. The comma-separated list specifies four hours evenly spaced every 6 hours.*(Day of Month): Every day from 1 through 31. No restriction on the day of the month.*(Month): Every month from January through December. No restriction on the month.*(Day of Week): Every day of the week from Sunday through Saturday. No restriction on the day.
This means your task will execute exactly 4 times per day with 6-hour intervals between each run. This is functionally equivalent to 0 */6 * * * and divides the day into four equal quarters. The four-times-daily cadence is particularly well suited for tasks where data freshness matters but hourly processing is overkill. It provides a good balance between timeliness and resource efficiency. This expression is supported by standard cron on Linux/macOS, as well as cloud services like AWS CloudWatch, Google Cloud Scheduler, and GitHub Actions.
Use Case
Perfect for updating a weather forecast API cache four times a day to provide reasonably fresh forecast data to your application users.
Try It — Interactive Builder
4 times a day: 12:00 AM, 6:00 AM, 12:00 PM, 6:00 PM
Next 10 Executions
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