Cron expression for Every 2 hours

What people actually schedule with 0 */2 * * *

• Polite-rate scraping or feed pulling within a partner’s limits
• Syncing CRM contacts both ways without hammering either side
• Incremental search-index updates

Use 0 */2 * * * on your platform

It’s the same 5-field expression everywhere — what changes is where you put it and which timezone it runs in.

Linux / crontab

0 */2 * * * /path/to/your-command

Runs in the server’s local timezone — check it with timedatectl. Full field reference: crontab(5) man page.

GitHub Actions

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 */2 * * *"

GitHub Actions always runs scheduled jobs in UTC — there is no timezone setting, and runs can be delayed under load (official docs).

Kubernetes CronJob

spec:
  schedule: "0 */2 * * *"

Defaults to UTC. Set spec.timeZone (Kubernetes 1.27+) for a specific zone — see the CronJob docs.

Quartz / Spring @Scheduled

Quartz uses 6 fields (seconds first): 0 0 */2 * * *. Watch out: Quartz day-of-week is 1=SUN … 7=SAT (not 0–6), and day-of-month / day-of-week use ? — double-check if your schedule touches those fields (Quartz cron reference).

Gotchas with every 2 hours schedules

• */2 in the hour field means 00,02,…22 in the scheduler’s timezone. On a UTC server that’s 08:00, 10:00… Taipei time — fine, until someone asks why the sync “runs at odd hours”.
• Twelve runs a day will straddle DST transition days — you can get 11 or 13 runs that day. If exactly-12 matters (billing, quotas), schedule in UTC.

Is 0 */2 * * * the right schedule?

Data that changes a few times a day deserves every 6 hours, not 12 polls. Step up to hourly only when a downstream consumer actually reads that often.

Or use the interactive cron generator & explainer, read the complete cron syntax guide, or pick another common schedule:

• Every 6 hours 0 */6 * * *
• Every 12 hours 0 */12 * * *
• Every day at midnight 0 0 * * *
• Every day at noon 0 12 * * *
• Every day at 9am 0 9 * * *
• Every weekday at 9am 0 9 * * 1-5