Cron every 5 minutes — `*/5 * * * *` explained

The slash (/) is the step operator. */5 means “every 5th value starting from the first valid value of the field”. For minutes that's 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55. The step does not wrap, so the next firing of an hour is at minute 0, not minute 60.

You can apply step syntax to any field. 0 */2 * * * fires at the top of every 2nd hour. 0 0 */7 * * fires at midnight every 7th day-of-month — note this resets at the month boundary, so it's not strictly “every 7 days” (see the every-N-days FAQ).

Linux crontab

*/5 * * * * /path/to/script.sh
# Equivalent explicit list:
0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * /path/to/script.sh

Vercel cron jobs

{
  "crons": [
    { "path": "/api/cron/every-5-min", "schedule": "*/5 * * * *" }
  ]
}

AWS EventBridge

cron(*/5 * * * ? *)
# Or with rate:
rate(5 minutes)

Kubernetes CronJob

apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
  name: every-5-min
spec:
  schedule: "*/5 * * * *"
  concurrencyPolicy: Forbid
  jobTemplate: { ... }

Quartz (Java)

Trigger trigger = newTrigger()
    .withSchedule(cronSchedule("0 */5 * * * ?"))
    .build();
// Quartz cron is 6+ fields: seconds, minute, hour, dom, month, dow.
// "0 */5 * * * ?" → at second 0, every 5 minutes, every hour, every day.

• * * * * * — every minute (5x as frequent).
• */5 9-17 * * 1-5 — every 5 minutes during business hours on weekdays.
• 2-59/5 * * * * — every 5 minutes shifted by 2 (fires at xx:02, xx:07, xx:12, …).
• */5 0-2,4-23 * * * — every 5 minutes excluding the 03:00 hour.
• */15 * * * * — every 15 minutes (3x less frequent).

• `*/7` doesn't divide 60 evenly — it fires at 0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56 then jumps to the next hour's 0. The interval is 7 minutes most of the time and 4 minutes once per hour. Stick with divisors of 60 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30) for evenly-spaced runs.
• Clock alignment — `*/5` always fires at clock-aligned minutes. Use AWS rate or your own timer if you need “5 minutes after the previous run” semantics instead.
• Concurrency — if a single run takes more than 5 minutes, the next run starts before the previous finishes. Use a lock file or a scheduler-level concurrency control to avoid overlap.