Cron: Every 5 minutes (*/5 * * * *)
Plain-English meaning, run times, and visual editor for the */5 * * * * cron schedule. No sign-up required.
What does */5 * * * * mean?
The cron expression */5 * * * * translates to “Every 5 minutes”. It is one of the most commonly used schedules (every 5 minutes).
The `*/5` step in the minute field means "every 5th minute starting at 0", so the job fires at :00, :05, :10 and on through :55 - twelve times an hour. The other four fields are wildcards, so it repeats through every hour, day and month. Five minutes is the sweet spot for a lot of background work: frequent enough to feel responsive for polling an API, syncing data or refreshing a cache, but spaced out enough that runs rarely overlap. It is also the finest granularity many hosted cron services (including some free tiers) actually allow.
Use the builder above to tweak this expression and instantly see how the description and the next run times change.
Example runs from Jan 1, 2026 (UTC)
- Thu Jan 01 2026, 00:05 UTC
- Thu Jan 01 2026, 00:10 UTC
- Thu Jan 01 2026, 00:15 UTC
- Thu Jan 01 2026, 00:20 UTC
- Thu Jan 01 2026, 00:25 UTC
Frequently Asked Questions
About cron expressions and this generator.
The slash is the step operator in cron. "*/5" in the minute field means the schedule runs at minutes divisible by 5: 0, 5, 10, 15, and so on.
Yes. In most cron environments, both "*/5" and "0/5" denote a step starting at minute 0 and repeating every 5 minutes.
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