Cron Expression: Cron Every Day at Midnight

This cron expression represents: cron every day at midnight

Cron Expression

0 0 * * *

What This Expression Does

Runs once per day at midnight (00:00) server time. The first 0 sets the minute, the second 0 sets the hour, and the three * wildcards mean “every day, every month, any weekday.”

Use Cases

Midnight is the classic “quiet hours” slot. This schedule is commonly used for:

• Nightly database backups
• Log rotation and archival
• Clearing expired sessions or temporary files
• End-of-day report generation

How to Use

1. Copy the cron expression above
2. Open your crontab with crontab -e
3. Add a new line with: 0 0 * * * /path/to/your/script.sh
4. Save and exit

A Note on Timezones

Cron fires at midnight in the server’s local timezone, which on most servers is UTC. If your users are elsewhere, “midnight” may land in the middle of their business day. Check the server timezone with timedatectl or date, or set CRON_TZ=America/New_York at the top of your crontab (supported by modern cronie/vixie-cron).

Alternative Formats

• With logging: 0 0 * * * /path/to/script.sh >> /var/log/cron.log 2>&1
• Shortcut syntax: @daily /path/to/script.sh (identical to 0 0 * * * in most cron implementations, as is @midnight)
• Offset a few minutes to avoid the midnight “thundering herd” of jobs: 5 0 * * * /path/to/script.sh