Cron every 8 hours

The cron expression for every 8 hours is:

0 */8 * * *

Runs three times a day: 00:00, 08:00 and 16:00.

3 times a day

Standard 5-field cron

Monitor this schedule Open in translator Change it in the generator

Next 10 runs

For 0 */8 * * *, in the timezone you pick. Cron uses the server's timezone.

Times in UTC as of the last site update. They refresh when the page loads in a browser.

Timezone

#	Date and time	When
1	Oct 30, 2026, 00:00	Friday
2	Oct 30, 2026, 08:00	Friday
3	Oct 30, 2026, 16:00	Friday
4	Oct 31, 2026, 00:00	Saturday
5	Oct 31, 2026, 08:00	Saturday
6	Oct 31, 2026, 16:00	Saturday
7	Nov 1, 2026, 00:00	Sunday
8	Nov 1, 2026, 08:00	Sunday
9	Nov 1, 2026, 16:00	Sunday
10	Nov 2, 2026, 00:00	Monday

How to read 0 /8 * *

0 in the minute field pins the job to minute 0. */8 in the hour field takes every eighth hour, starting at midnight. It is the same as 0 0,8,16 * * *.

Field	Value	Meaning	Allowed
Minute	0	At the top of the hour	0-59
Hour	*/8	Every 8 hours, from hour 0	0-23
Day of month	*	Every day of the month	1-31
Month	*	Every month	1-12 or jan-dec
Weekday	*	Every day of week	0-7 or sun-sat

Watch out for

Leaving the minute as * (* */8 * * *) runs the job every minute of those hours.
To shift the times, list them: 0 2,10,18 * * * runs at 02:00, 10:00 and 18:00.

Often used for: Jobs that run once per working shift.

Use it in

crontab

0 */8 * * * /path/to/your-script.sh

Edit with crontab -e. Runs in the server's timezone.

Kubernetes CronJob

apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
  name: my-job
spec:
  schedule: "0 */8 * * *"
  timeZone: "Etc/UTC"
  jobTemplate:
    spec:
      template:
        spec:
          restartPolicy: OnFailure
          containers:
            - name: my-job
              image: busybox:1.36
              command: ["sh", "-c", "date"]

Without timeZone, the schedule follows the timezone of the kube-controller-manager.

GitHub Actions

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 */8 * * *'
      timezone: "Etc/UTC"
jobs:
  run:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: ./your-script.sh

Without timezone, GitHub runs schedules in UTC. It runs them at most every 5 minutes, and a run can start late when GitHub is busy.

All cron schedules

Cron does not tell you when a job stops

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