Cron every minute

Every minute in cron is * * * * * (Unix) or 0 * * * * ? (Quartz, Spring); this page lists the next runs, calculated in your browser.

Unix cron (crontab, GitHub Actions, Kubernetes)

* * * * *

Quartz and Spring (seconds first; valid in both)

0 * * * * ?

AWS EventBridge (minute first, year last)

cron(* * * * ? *)

Read by our parser as: Every minute. Open in the cron checker

Next 10 runs

Calculating in your browser...

At a glance

Accepts: Nothing to enter - the schedule is preset on the page
Outputs: The expression in Unix, Quartz/Spring and AWS form, plus its next 10 run times
Where it runs: Entirely in your browser, on your device
What leaves your device: Nothing - what you type stays in this tab
Limits: Run times use your browser's timezone or UTC; real schedulers can start a run late
Account: Not required - there is no sign-up
Price: Free, with no watermark and no usage cap
Made by: Visrut

What it means

* * * * * is the most frequent schedule classic cron can express: five asterisks, so every minute of every hour of every day. In Quartz and Spring the first field is seconds, so the same schedule is 0 * * * * ? - run at second 0 of every minute. Writing * * * * * ? there instead would run every second.

When this is the right schedule

Use it when a job is cheap, finishes well under a minute, and you want the shortest delay cron allows, such as draining a small queue or a health check on your own server.

When to pick something else

Look elsewhere when the job can take longer than a minute (runs will overlap unless you add a lock), or you are on GitHub Actions, which won't schedule more often than every 5 minutes. A long-running worker or a queue consumer is usually better than polling every minute.

Things to watch

Overlapping runs

Cron starts a new run every minute whether or not the last one finished. On Linux, wrap the command in flock -n /tmp/job.lock your-command so a slow run makes the next one skip instead of piling up. Kubernetes has concurrencyPolicy: Forbid for the same job.

Platform limits

GitHub Actions documents a minimum interval of 5 minutes, so * * * * * there won't run every minute. AWS EventBridge accepts once a minute but nothing faster, and EventBridge Scheduler invokes within the minute (60-second precision), not at second 0.

Not the same as every second

Pasting a 5-field * * * * * into a Quartz or Spring scheduler fails (they need 6 fields). Adding one more asterisk to make it fit gives * * * * * *, which Spring reads as every second. Put a 0 in front instead.

Frequently asked questions

Is * * * * * the same as */1 * * * *?

Yes. A step of 1 matches every value, so both run every minute. Most people write * * * * * because it's shorter.

Can cron run every 30 seconds?

Unix cron can't; its smallest unit is a minute. Quartz and Spring can with */30 * * * * ?, because their first field is seconds. On plain cron, a common workaround is two lines: one running the command and one running sleep 30 && the command.