Cron expression for every 2 hours
At minute 0 past every 2nd hour
0
minute
*/2
hour
*
day (month)
*
month
*
day (week)
At minute 0 past every 2nd hour
Try this expression in the interactive tool:
Open in cron explainer →Next 10 scheduled runs
#1Thu, 16 Apr 2026, 02:00
#2Thu, 16 Apr 2026, 04:00
#3Thu, 16 Apr 2026, 06:00
#4Thu, 16 Apr 2026, 08:00
#5Thu, 16 Apr 2026, 10:00
#6Thu, 16 Apr 2026, 12:00
#7Thu, 16 Apr 2026, 14:00
#8Thu, 16 Apr 2026, 16:00
#9Thu, 16 Apr 2026, 18:00
#10Thu, 16 Apr 2026, 20:00
Common use cases
Every 2 hours fires 12 times per day — at midnight, 2 AM, 4 AM, and so on. This is a practical interval for batch processing tasks that don't need hourly frequency but require more attention than a daily job.
Common applications include syncing data between a primary database and a data warehouse, running medium-weight analytics queries, processing batches of uploaded files, and performing periodic cleanup of temporary resources like orphaned cloud instances or dangling DNS records.
Platform-specific syntax
crontab
0 */2 * * * /path/to/script.shAWS EventBridge
cron(0 0/2 * * ? *)GitHub Actions
schedule:
- cron: '0 */2 * * *'Kubernetes
schedule: "0 */2 * * *"Technical breakdown
The expression 0 */2 * * * has five fields: minute=0, hour=*/2, day (month)=*, month=*, day (week)=*. At minute 0 past every 2nd hour.
Frequently asked questions
What times does 0 */2 * * * run?
00:00, 02:00, 04:00, 06:00, 08:00, 10:00, 12:00, 14:00, 16:00, 18:00, 20:00, and 22:00 — 12 times per day.