The cron expression to run a job every 3 minutes is */3 * * * *. See the next run times in your timezone.
*/3minute*hour*day*month*weekdayIn Plain English
What your cron expression actually means.
Every 3 minutes, every hour, every day
Upcoming Executions
Preview the next 50 times this schedule will trigger.
About */3 * * * *
*/3 * * * * runs a job every 3 minutes, on the minute. Because 3 divides 60 evenly, the spacing stays consistent across every hour boundary.
Cron reads the five fields as minute hour day month weekday. For this schedule that breaks down as:
| Field | Position | Matches |
|---|---|---|
*/3 | minute | 0, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, … 57 (20 values) |
* | hour | every hour |
* | day of month | every day |
* | month | every month |
* | day of week | every day of the week |
New to cron? Read the syntax reference or the FAQ.
Use it in crontab or GitHub Actions
Both snippets are ready to paste. A crontab runs in the server's local timezone; GitHub Actions always evaluates schedules in UTC. For Kubernetes, AWS EventBridge, or Vercel, use the export menu in the calculator above.
crontab
# Every 3 minutes, every hour, every day */3 * * * * /path/to/command
GitHub Actions workflow
# Every 3 minutes, every hour, every day
# Note: GitHub Actions always runs schedules in UTC.
on:
schedule:
- cron: '*/3 * * * *'