Cron Jobs

Schedule automated tasks on Hostinger with cron jobs in hPanel, including cron syntax, common schedules, PHP script commands, and capturing output to logs.

Schedule commands or scripts to run automatically — emails, reports, cleanup, app tasks.

Create a cron job

1. Open your website dashboard.

2. Go to Cron Jobs.

3. Click Create Cron Job.

4. Set the schedule and command.

5. Click Save.

Cron syntax

Standard cron — five fields:

* * * * *  command to run
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ └── Day of week (0–7, Sunday = 0 or 7)
│ │ │ └──── Month (1–12)
│ │ └────── Day of month (1–31)
│ └──────── Hour (0–23)
└────────── Minute (0–59)

Common schedules

Schedule	Cron expression
Every minute	* * * * *
Every 5 minutes	*/5 * * * *
Every hour	0 * * * *
Daily at midnight	0 0 * * *
Daily at 8:00 AM	0 8 * * *
Every Monday at 9:00 AM	0 9 * * 1
First day of every month	0 0 1 * *

hPanel also has a visual schedule builder.

Commands

Typically a PHP script, shell script, or system command.

Run a PHP script

php /home/username/public_html/script.php

WordPress cron

WordPress's built-in wp-cron runs on page visits. For reliability, disable it and use a real cron job:

1. Add to wp-config.php:

   define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

2. Create a cron job:

   php /home/username/public_html/wp-cron.php

Manage cron jobs

All jobs are listed in the Cron Jobs panel. Click to edit, or Delete to remove.

Capturing output

Output is discarded by default. Redirect it to a log file for debugging:

php /home/username/public_html/script.php >> /home/username/cron.log 2>&1

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Last updated: July 21, 2026