Every 12 Hours Cron Expression for Azure
0 0 */12 * * *Try it live
Valid
MINMinute
0HRHour
9DOMDay of Month
*MONMonth
*DOWDay of Week
1-5In plain English
At 09:00 AM, Monday through Friday
English → Cron
Try: "every 5 minutes", "every weekday at 9am", "every Monday at 3pm", "every month on the 1st"
Next 10 Executions
UTC- 1Mon, May 18, 09:00 AM UTCin 3d
- 2Tue, May 19, 09:00 AM UTCin 4d
- 3Wed, May 20, 09:00 AM UTCin 5d
- 4Thu, May 21, 09:00 AM UTCin 6d
- 5Fri, May 22, 09:00 AM UTCin 7d
- 6Mon, May 25, 09:00 AM UTCin 10d
- 7Tue, May 26, 09:00 AM UTCin 11d
- 8Wed, May 27, 09:00 AM UTCin 12d
- 9Thu, May 28, 09:00 AM UTCin 13d
- 10Fri, May 29, 09:00 AM UTCin 14d
crontab entrybash
# Add to crontab with: crontab -e
0 9 * * 1-5 /path/to/your/script.shWhen to use this schedule
- ▸ Full database backups twice daily (midnight and noon) to balance freshness vs. storage
- ▸ Certificate expiry checks morning and evening to catch near-expiry certs
- ▸ Sending a daily newsletter in two editions (morning and evening)
Platform Syntax Comparison
The same "Every 12 Hours" schedule expressed in every major platform's cron syntax.
| Platform | Expression |
|---|---|
| Standard Linux/Unix | 0 */12 * * * |
| GitHub Actions | 0 */12 * * * |
| Google Cloud Scheduler | 0 */12 * * * |
| Kubernetes CronJob | 0 */12 * * * |
| Azure Functions (NCRONTAB) | 0 0 */12 * * * |
| AWS EventBridge | 0 0/12 * * ? * |
| Quartz Scheduler | 0 0 */12 * * ? |
| Spring @Scheduled | 0 0 */12 * * * |
| Jenkins | H H/12 * * * |
| Apache Airflow | 0 */12 * * * |
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the exact run times for every-12-hours? ▾
"0 */12 * * *" fires at midnight (00:00) and noon (12:00) every day.
How do I shift the schedule to 6am and 6pm instead? ▾
Use "0 6,18 * * *" to explicitly target 6am and 6pm.