Hourly
0 */4 * * *Run six times a day — 00:00, 04:00, … 20:00.
This preview is live: the table below shows the actual next run times for 0 */4 * * * in your time zone, recomputed in your browser. Change the expression, dialect, or zone to experiment, then copy the result.
0 */4 * * * means0 */4 * * * divides the day into six even blocks, firing at midnight, 04:00, 08:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00. It is a clean, regular cadence (24 ÷ 4 = 6) that maps neatly onto a six-times-a-day operational rhythm.
Four hours is a common interval for medication-style reminders, shift handovers, and batch jobs that want to touch the data a handful of times a day without the overhead of hourly runs.
Unix cron has five fields. Here is what each one is doing in this expression:
| Field | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Minute | 0 | minute = 0 |
| Hour | */4 | every 4 (step) across hour |
| Day of month | * | every day-of-month |
| Month | * | every month |
| Day of week | * | every day-of-week |
The same cadence written for the seven cron dialects you are most likely to meet. Copy the line for the system you target — the field count and day-of-week numbering differ between them.
| Scheduler | Expression | Copy |
|---|---|---|
| Unix / crontab | 0 */4 * * * | |
| GitHub Actions | 0 */4 * * * | |
| Kubernetes CronJob | 0 */4 * * * | |
| Vercel Cron | 0 */4 * * * | |
| Quartz | 0 0 */4 * * * * | |
| Spring | 0 0 */4 * * * | |
| AWS EventBridge | 0 */4 * * * * |
0 */4 * * *If you need the runs anchored to a non-midnight time (say 02:00, 06:00, …) you cannot do it with */4 alone — list the hours explicitly: 0 2,6,10,14,18,22 * * *.
0 */4 * * * means: Run six times a day — 00:00, 04:00, … 20:00. 0 */4 * * * divides the day into six even blocks, firing at midnight, 04:00, 08:00, 12:00, 16:00, and 20:00. It is a clean, regular cadence (24 ÷ 4 = 6) that maps neatly onto a six-times-a-day operational rhythm.
Use 0 */4 * * * in the schedule's cron field. If you need the runs anchored to a non-midnight time (say 02:00, 06:00, …) you cannot do it with */4 alone — list the hours explicitly: 0 2,6,10,14,18,22 * * *.
EventBridge uses six fields with a required year and a ? placeholder in one day field: 0 */4 * * * *. Wrap it as cron(0 */4 * * * *) in the console or CloudFormation.
Quartz is seconds-first with a trailing year, so the equivalent is 0 0 */4 * * * *. Remember Quartz numbers Sunday as 1, the opposite of Unix.
Browse the full set of cron pattern pages, or jump to the interactive tools: the cron expression builder for designing a schedule from scratch, the cron cheat sheet for a side-by-side reference, the cron timezone translator for moving a schedule between zones and dialects, and the GitHub Actions cron picker for DST-stable CI schedules.