Cron Three Times Daily
Cron expression 0 8,14,20 * * * means At 8:00 AM, 2:00 PM, and 8:00 PM.
Cron expression to run a job three times a day at 8 AM, 2 PM, and 8 PM: 0 8,14,20 * * *. Evenly spaced 6-hour intervals throughout the waking day.
Cron Expression
Common use cases
- Medication reminder apps that need predictable multi-daily pings
- Sending digest notifications at morning, afternoon, and evening
- Polling external APIs more frequently than once per day
- Refreshing cached leaderboard or analytics data three times a day
Want to customize this schedule?
Open it in the visual builder to tweak the expression interactively.
Open in BuilderNeed to monitor this cron job?
Cronhub tracks your scheduled jobs and alerts you if they fail or run late.
Platform usage examples
# Edit your crontab
crontab -e
# Add this line to run three times daily
0 8,14,20 * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/script.php
# Or run a shell script
0 8,14,20 * * * /home/user/scripts/job.sh >> /var/log/job.log 2>&1# .github/workflows/scheduled.yml
name: Scheduled Job
on:
schedule:
- cron: '0 8,14,20 * * *'
jobs:
run:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Run job
run: echo "Running three times daily"apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
name: my-scheduled-job
spec:
schedule: "0 8,14,20 * * *"
jobTemplate:
spec:
template:
spec:
containers:
- name: job
image: my-image:latest
restartPolicy: OnFailureRelated developer tools
More free tools for engineering workflows that pair with scheduled jobs:
Frequently asked questions
What is the cron expression for three times daily?
The cron expression is 0 8,14,20 * * *. Cron expression to run a job three times a day at 8 AM, 2 PM, and 8 PM: 0 8,14,20 * * *. Evenly spaced 6-hour intervals throughout the waking day.
How do I schedule a cron job to run three times daily in Linux?
Open your crontab with "crontab -e" and add a new line: 0 8,14,20 * * * /path/to/your/script.sh — this schedules your script to run three times daily. Save and exit; the cron daemon picks up the change immediately.
What does the cron expression "0 8,14,20 * * *" mean?
Cron expression to run a job three times a day at 8 AM, 2 PM, and 8 PM: 0 8,14,20 * * *. Evenly spaced 6-hour intervals throughout the waking day.
Can I use "0 8,14,20 * * *" in GitHub Actions?
Yes. In your workflow YAML, set the schedule trigger: on: schedule: - cron: '0 8,14,20 * * *'. GitHub Actions uses standard 5-field Unix cron syntax, so this expression works as-is.