What number represents Thursday in cron?

4. Standard cron's day-of-week field runs 0 (Sunday) through 6 (Saturday), placing Thursday at index 4.

How do I run a job every Thursday except the last one of the month?

Standard cron can't express 'except the last occurrence' directly — you'd need application logic to check the date and skip execution when appropriate, since cron only evaluates the schedule, not conditional business rules.

Can I combine Thursday with a specific week of the month?

Not in standard POSIX cron. Quartz Scheduler's # syntax (e.g. 5#4 for the 4th Thursday) supports this, but standard Vixie cron used on Linux does not.

Cron: Every Thursday

0 0 * * 4 fires once a week, every Thursday at midnight — day-of-week 4 in standard cron. Thursday sits just before the weekend, making it a common choice for pre-weekend reports, end-of-sprint automation, and jobs that need to complete before Friday wind-down.

0 0 * * 4

Try it in Cron Parser

Examples & Variations

0 0 * * 4

Every Thursday at midnight

Try it

0 16 * * 4

Every Thursday at 4:00 PM

Try it

0 9 * * 4

Every Thursday at 9:00 AM

Try it

Common Mistakes

Scheduling a Thursday job that a Friday process depends on without enough buffer — if Thursday's run is delayed, Friday's job may run against stale data.
Assuming a Thursday deploy or release is 'safer' than Friday by default — it still carries weekend-adjacent risk if something breaks late in the day.
Overlooking that many biweekly sprint cadences land differently each cycle — a Thursday cron job tied to 'sprint end' needs application logic, not just a day-of-week field, to actually track sprint boundaries.

Best Practices

If a Friday process depends on Thursday's output, add a health check or alert if Thursday's job hasn't completed by a certain time, rather than assuming success.
For end-of-week reporting, Thursday afternoon often captures a fuller week's data than an early Friday run while still leaving buffer before the weekend.
Keep sprint- or cycle-based logic (biweekly, etc.) in application code — cron's day-of-week field can't express anything beyond a fixed weekly recurrence.

Frequently Asked Questions

What number represents Thursday in cron?: 4. Standard cron's day-of-week field runs 0 (Sunday) through 6 (Saturday), placing Thursday at index 4.
How do I run a job every Thursday except the last one of the month?: Standard cron can't express 'except the last occurrence' directly — you'd need application logic to check the date and skip execution when appropriate, since cron only evaluates the schedule, not conditional business rules.
Can I combine Thursday with a specific week of the month?: Not in standard POSIX cron. Quartz Scheduler's # syntax (e.g. 5#4 for the 4th Thursday) supports this, but standard Vixie cron used on Linux does not.

Related Tools

Cron Parser

Translate cron expressions to plain English

Cron Cheat Sheet

Quick reference for cron syntax, special characters, and shortcuts

Cron Examples Library

Browse and search common cron expression examples

Cron: Every Wednesday

The cron expression for every Wednesday is 0 0 * * 3, running weekly at midnight. See Wednesday scheduling examples and best practices.

Cron: Every Friday

The cron expression for every Friday is 0 0 * * 5, running weekly at midnight. See Friday scheduling examples and deployment best practices.

Cron: Every Saturday

The cron expression for every Saturday is 0 0 * * 6, running weekly at midnight. See Saturday scheduling examples and best practices.