Cron every day at 6 PM

The cron expression for every day at 6 PM is:

0 18 * * *

Runs once a day at 18:00.

Once a day
Standard 5-field cron

Next 10 runs

For 0 18 * * *, 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.

#Date and timeWhen
1Oct 30, 2026, 18:00Friday
2Oct 31, 2026, 18:00Saturday
3Nov 1, 2026, 18:00Sunday
4Nov 2, 2026, 18:00Monday
5Nov 3, 2026, 18:00Tuesday
6Nov 4, 2026, 18:00Wednesday
7Nov 5, 2026, 18:00Thursday
8Nov 6, 2026, 18:00Friday
9Nov 7, 2026, 18:00Saturday
10Nov 8, 2026, 18:00Sunday

How to read 0 18 * * *

0 18 sets minute 0 of hour 18. The last three * fields mean every day.

FieldValueMeaningAllowed
Minute0At the top of the hour0-59
Hour18At 6:00 PM0-23
Day of month*Every day of the month1-31
Month*Every month1-12 or jan-dec
Weekday*Every day of week0-7 or sun-sat

Watch out for

  • Hours run from 0 to 23, so 6 PM is 18. 0 6 * * * is 6 AM.
  • For weekdays only, use 0 18 * * 1-5.

Often used for: End-of-day summaries and syncs after office hours.

Use it in

crontab

0 18 * * * /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 18 * * *"
  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 18 * * *'
      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

Know when a job on this schedule does not run.

Your job pings Drumbeats when it finishes. If a ping does not arrive on schedule, you get an alert. No SDK, free for up to 50 monitors.

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