This page will help you quickly and easily set up a cron job to run once per week on Saturday.
The Cron Job/Crontab
To have your task run at this frequency, use the following cron:
0 0 * * 6
This cron command translates to the following (in Human-Readable format):
“Once per week on Saturday.”
What is a Cron Job & Crontab?
A cron job is a task that is scheduled to run at a specific time or interval. Cron jobs are typically used for automating tasks, such as running backups or sending emails.
Crontab is a file that contains instructions for the cron daemon. The cron daemon is a program that runs in the background and executes tasks at specified times. The crontab file is used to specify which tasks are to be run and when they are to be run.
Cron Fields
Every cron job uses five fields. Here is an explanation of what each field does in this cron, which runs “once per week on Saturday“:
- Field 1: (0) indicates that the task will be run at minute 0.
- Field 2: (0) indicates that the task will be run at hour 0 (12 am).
- Field 3: (*) indicates that the task will be run every day of the month.
- Field 4: (*) indicates that the task will be run every month.
- Field 5: (6) indicates that the task will be run every Saturday.
FUN FACT: When editing your crontab, it is important to use a text editor that supports Unix-style line endings (LF), as opposed to Windows-style line endings (CRLF)..
Use Cases
You might want to set up a crontab or cron job to run once per week on Saturday for several reasons, including:
- Perform maintenance tasks that can only be done when the system is inactive, such as backing up databases
- Run weekly reports
- Send out a newsletter to subscribers
Similar Cron Jobs
You might also want to run a crontab:
- once per week on Monday
- once per week on Friday
- once per week on Sunday
- once per week on Thursday
- once per week on Saturday
- once per week on Wednesday
- once per week on Tuesday
- once per day on Friday to Saturday
- once per day on Sunday to Wednesday
- once per day on Monday to Wednesday
FUN FACT: When troubleshooting issues with cron jobs, it can be helpful to run them manually from the command line – this will allow you to see any error messages that might be generated..
Wrapping Up
In this article, you learned how to set up a cron job that runs once per week on Saturday. Please share this page with friends and colleagues if you find it useful.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to comment below.
If you are looking for cron jobs that run at certain minutes, hours, days, weekdays, or months, or if you are looking for miscellaneous cron jobs, then check out our relevant sections, or visit our cron job cheat sheet for a list of hundreds of popular cron jobs.
