Run a Cron Job Every Friday
Day-of-week 5 is Friday (0 and 7 are Sunday) and hour 17 is 5 p.m., so 0 17 * * 5 fires once a week as the working week ends — a common slot for weekly summaries and end-of-week exports.
0 17 * * 5In plain English: At 17:00, on Friday.
Field by field
| Field | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Minute | 0 | 0 |
| Hour | 17 | 17 |
| Day of month | * | every day |
| Month | * | every month |
| Day of week | 5 | Friday |
Variations
0 17 * * FRIthe same schedule with the day name0 9 * * 5Friday mornings at 09:000 17 * * 1-5every weekday at 17:00Tweak any of these in the crontab explainer to see the schedule in plain English and its next run times.
Frequently asked questions
Is Friday 5 or 6 in cron?
5. Cron counts from Sunday = 0: Monday 1, Tuesday 2, Wednesday 3, Thursday 4, Friday 5, Saturday 6 — and 7 is Sunday again.
How do I run on the last Friday of the month?
Standard cron can't express it. Run every Friday and have the job continue only when the date a week later falls in the next month — in a script: [ "$(date -d '+7 days' +%m)" != "$(date +%m)" ] || exit 0 (GNU date; in the crontab line itself, escape each % as \%).
New to cron syntax? Read Cron Expressions Explained, Field by Field. Job not firing? Work through Cron Job Not Running? 10 Things to Check.