WordPress Cron Schedules
Reference for all built-in wp-cron recurrence schedules and a generator for custom intervals with ready-to-paste PHP code. Includes a seconds calculator. Everything runs in your browser.
Built-in Schedules
WordPress registers these four recurrence slugs by default. Pass the slug to wp_schedule_event() as the third argument.
| Slug | Display Name | Interval | Fires every | Example |
|---|
Custom Schedule Generator
Fill in the fields below and click Generate to get the complete PHP code for your functions.php.
myplugin). text-domain should match your plugin's text domain. Seconds Calculator
Convert between a human-readable duration and raw seconds.
About this tool
WordPress includes a built-in task scheduler called WP-Cron. It lets you schedule PHP callbacks to run on a recurring basis — useful for sending emails, cleaning up expired transients, syncing data with external APIs, and more.
Built-in schedules
Out of the box WordPress provides four recurrence slugs: hourly, twicedaily, daily, and weekly. You pass one of these slugs (or your own custom slug) as the third argument to wp_schedule_event().
Adding custom schedules
To add an interval that WordPress does not include (for example, every 5 minutes), hook into the cron_schedules filter and return an array containing your slug, its interval in seconds, and a human-readable display name. The generator above produces this code for you.
WP-Cron is pseudo-cron
WP-Cron does not watch the clock. Instead, WordPress checks for overdue scheduled events on every page request. On a quiet site with very little traffic, due tasks can sit waiting for the next visitor — so timing drifts. It works fine for most sites, but if you need precise intervals, use a real system cron.
Using a real server cron for reliability
1. Disable WordPress from triggering cron on page loads. Add this line to wp-config.php:
define( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', true );
2. Add a crontab entry that fetches wp-cron.php on a fixed schedule (example: every 5 minutes):
*/5 * * * * wget -q -O - https://yourdomain.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron >/dev/null 2>&1
Or with curl:
*/5 * * * * curl -s https://yourdomain.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron >/dev/null 2>&1
This gives you predictable, traffic-independent task execution.
Cleanup on deactivation
Always remove your scheduled events when a plugin or theme is deactivated. The generated code above includes register_deactivation_hook with wp_unschedule_event to handle this automatically.
