Runs in your browser. Your files and text never leave your device - nothing is uploaded.
Every minute
Next 8 run times
- Fri, Oct 16, 2026, 11:25 PM
- Fri, Oct 16, 2026, 11:26 PM
- Fri, Oct 16, 2026, 11:27 PM
- Fri, Oct 16, 2026, 11:28 PM
- Fri, Oct 16, 2026, 11:29 PM
- Fri, Oct 16, 2026, 11:30 PM
- Fri, Oct 16, 2026, 11:31 PM
- Fri, Oct 16, 2026, 11:32 PM
Standard 5-field cron syntax: minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week. Next run times are computed in your browser's local timezone.
What is the cron expression for every minute?
* * * * * runs a job every minute. An asterisk in all five fields matches every minute of every hour on every day, which is 1,440 runs a day and 525,600 in 2026. GitHub Actions cannot schedule that often, because its shortest interval is five minutes, so per-minute work there needs a long-running worker.
* * * * * field by field
| Field | Allowed | Value | Selects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minute | 0-59 | * | every minute of the hour (0-59) |
| Hour | 0-23 | * | every hour of the day (0-23) |
| Day of month | 1-31 | * | any date |
| Month | 1-12 or JAN-DEC | * | every month |
| Day of week | 0-6 or SUN-SAT (0 = Sunday; many crons also accept 7) | * | any weekday |
With both day fields left as *, every calendar date qualifies, so only the minute and hour decide when it fires.
How often * * * * * runs in 2026
- Runs on each matching day: 1,440.
- Matching days in 2026: 365 of 365.
- Total runs in 2026: 525,600.
- First run of the year: Thu, 1 Jan 2026, 00:00 UTC. Last: Thu, 31 Dec 2026, 23:59 UTC.
These counts use UTC, which has no daylight saving. The run list in the generator shows the next runs in your browser's own time zone instead.
The same schedule in other schedulers
| Scheduler | Write it as | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| crontab (Linux, macOS) | * * * * * /usr/local/bin/process-queue.sh | Add it with crontab -e. In /etc/crontab a user name goes between the time fields and the command. |
| Kubernetes CronJob | schedule: "* * * * *" | Valid, but every run creates a Job and a Pod; set concurrencyPolicy: Forbid so slow runs do not pile up. |
| GitHub Actions | - cron: '* * * * *' | Accepted, but GitHub runs scheduled workflows at most once every 5 minutes, so this cannot fire every minute. |
| AWS EventBridge | cron(* * * * ? *) | rate(1 minute) is the simpler equivalent; one minute is the finest granularity EventBridge offers. |
| Quartz | 0 * * * * ? | The leading 0 is the seconds field, so it fires at second 0 of every minute. |
Time zones and daylight saving
Time zone hardly matters for an every-minute job, because every minute matches. Daylight saving changes the count rather than the spacing: on a server running local time, Vixie-derived crons such as cronie follow the clock for wildcard jobs, so the spring-forward day loses 60 runs and the autumn day gains 60 as the repeated hour is walked twice. If the job writes timestamps, record them in UTC so that repeated hour cannot produce entries that appear out of order.
Common mistakes with * * * * *
- Overlapping runs: cron starts a new copy every minute whether or not the last one has finished. Wrap the command in
flock -n /tmp/queue.lockor useconcurrencyPolicy: Forbidon Kubernetes. - Writing
* 9 * * *to mean "at 9 a.m.". The asterisk in the minute field makes it run 60 times, from 9:00 to 9:59; the once-a-day form is0 9 * * *. - Expecting sub-minute precision. Standard cron has no seconds field, so "every 30 seconds" needs a second line that starts with
sleep 30;, or a scheduler with a seconds field such as Quartz.
Frequently asked questions
* * * * * - Every minute. Evaluated in UTC, that comes to 525,600 runs in 2026, the first at Thu, 1 Jan 2026, 00:00 UTC.
Not directly, because one minute is the smallest unit standard cron understands. The usual workaround is two crontab lines that both use * * * * *, the second with "sleep 30;" in front of the command. Quartz has a seconds field, so 0/30 * * * * ? fires every 30 seconds there.
EventBridge: cron(* * * * ? *). Quartz: 0 * * * * ?. EventBridge adds a year field at the end and Quartz a seconds field at the start, and both need ? in one day field - here the day-of-week field, because the schedule names no weekday.
Other common schedules
Reviewed by Raja Jahangir · Last reviewed: October 7, 2026