cron*/5 0-6 * * *

Every 5 Minutes Overnight (00:00–06:00)

“Every 5 minutes, hour 0 through 6”

Runs every 5 minutes between midnight and 6 AM UTC. Useful for intensive overnight jobs.

Special Patterns72 (00:00–06:00 only) runs/day

Want to customize this schedule or validate your own cron expression?

Try it live →

Field Breakdown

Field	Value	Meaning
minute	`*/5`	every 5th minute
hour	`0-6`	hour 0 through 6
day	`*`	every day of month
month	`*`	every month
weekday	`*`	every day of week

*/5

minute

0-6

hour

day

month

weekday

Common Use Cases

✓Intensive overnight processing
✓Low-traffic window polling

Code Examples

Bash / crontab

# Run your script on schedule: */5 0-6 * * *
*/5 0-6 * * * /path/to/your/script.sh

Node.js (node-cron)

import cron from 'node-cron';

cron.schedule('*/5 0-6 * * *', () => {
  console.log('Running scheduled task');
});

Python (APScheduler)

from apscheduler.schedulers.blocking import BlockingScheduler

scheduler = BlockingScheduler()

@scheduler.scheduled_job('cron', minute='*/5', hour='0-6')
def my_job():
    print('Running scheduled task')

scheduler.start()

GitHub Actions Workflow

Generate a ready-to-use .github/workflows/schedule.yml file. Customize the name and download directly.

GitHub Actions

Workflow Name

Job ID

# .github/workflows/schedule.yml
name: Every 5 Minutes Overnight (00:00–06:00)

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '*/5 0-6 * * *'
  workflow_dispatch: # allow manual trigger

jobs:
  run:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Run scheduled task
        run: |
          echo "Running on schedule: */5 0-6 * * *"
          # Add your commands here

Save as .github/workflows/schedule.yml in your repository root

Cron Syntax Quick Reference

Field	Allowed Values	Special Chars
minute	0–59	* , - /
hour	0–23	* , - /
day of month	1–31	* , - /
month	1–12 or JAN–DEC	* , - /
day of week	0–7 or SUN–SAT	* , - /

Special characters: *= any value ,= list -= range / = step

Related Patterns — Special Patterns

0 0,12 * * *

Twice Daily (Midnight and Noon)

0 0,8,16 * * *

Three Times Daily (Every 8 Hours)

0 0,6,12,18 * * *

Four Times Daily (Every 6 Hours)

0 9,12,15,18 * * 1-5

Four Times on Weekdays (9 AM, Noon, 3 PM, 6 PM)

0 0 29 2 *

February 29th (Leap Day)

Need to build your own cron expression from scratch?

Open the Cron Expression Builder →