---
title: "How to Create a Cron Job in cPanel"
description: "Schedule a script to run automatically with Cron Jobs in cPanel, write the command with full paths, read the five time fields and stop unwanted cron emails."
url: "https://docs.noiz.ie/cpanel/how-to-create-a-cron-job-in-cpanel/"
section: "cPanel"
categories:
  - "Control Panels > cPanel > Cron Jobs"
last_reviewed: "27 July 2026, against the current cPanel & WHM release"
---

# How to Create a Cron Job in cPanel

A cron job is a task your hosting account runs automatically on a schedule you set, so a script runs by itself at a fixed time instead of you having to trigger it by hand. This guide shows you how to create a cron job in cPanel on Noiz hosting, how to write the command correctly, and the gotchas worth knowing before you schedule one.

**Last reviewed:** 27 July 2026, against the current cPanel & WHM release. This guide is written for Noiz hosting and is kept current against cPanel. It complements, and does not replace, the official cPanel documentation linked below.

### Official Documentation Reference

- [cPanel Cron Jobs interface](https://docs.cpanel.net/cpanel/advanced/cron-jobs/)

## Prerequisites

- A Noiz hosting account on a cPanel plan, and your cPanel login.
- The full path to the script you want to run, or the command you would normally type at the shell.

## Create the cron job

**1.** Log in to your cPanel account.

**2.** In the **Advanced** section, click **Cron Jobs**.

![Cron Jobs icon in the cPanel Advanced section](/img/cronjob-icon.gif)

**3.** Under **Add New Cron Job**, open the **Common Settings** drop-down and choose how often the job should run, for example **Once Per Day**. cPanel fills in the five schedule fields (**Minute**, **Hour**, **Day**, **Month** and **Weekday**) for you. You can adjust any of these fields by hand afterwards if you need a more specific time.

**4.** In the **Command** field, enter the command you want to run. Use the full path to the interpreter and to your script rather than a relative path. For a PHP script, that usually looks like this:

```
/usr/local/bin/php /home/username/public_html/cron/script.php
```

To run a script by requesting its URL instead, use `wget` or `curl`:

```
wget -q -O /dev/null https://yourdomain.com/cron/script.php
```

Replace `username`, the path and `yourdomain.com` with your own values.

**5.** Click **Add New Cron Job**. The job appears in the **Current Cron Jobs** table lower down the page, where you can edit or delete it at any time.

![cPanel Add New Cron Job form with the Common Settings drop-down and Command field](/img/add-cronjob.gif)

## Understanding the schedule fields

Each cron job is defined by five time fields, read left to right:

- **Minute** (0 to 59), **Hour** (0 to 23), **Day of month** (1 to 31), **Month** (1 to 12) and **Weekday** (0 to 6, where 0 is Sunday).
- An asterisk (`*`) means "every". So `0 3 * * *` runs at 03:00 every day, and `*/15 * * * *` runs every fifteen minutes.

The **Common Settings** drop-down is simply a shortcut that writes these values for you, which is the easiest way to start.

## The email notification gotcha

By default cPanel emails the output of every cron run to the address shown in the **Cron Email** box at the top of the page. A job that prints anything, even a routine success message, will send you an email on every single run, which quickly becomes noise. To keep only genuine errors, discard the normal output by adding `>/dev/null` to the end of your command. Error messages still reach the **Cron Email** address:

```
/usr/local/bin/php /home/username/public_html/cron/script.php >/dev/null
```

If you want no email from the job at all, errors included, use `>/dev/null 2>&1` instead. That is the method cPanel's [Cron Jobs documentation](https://docs.cpanel.net/cpanel/advanced/cron-jobs/) gives for disabling notifications, but it also hides failures, so only use it on a job you know works.

Set a real address in **Cron Email** while you are testing a new job, then tidy the output once you are happy it works.

## Troubleshooting

**The job never seems to run**: check that you used full paths for both the interpreter and the script, and that the script has execute permission. A relative path such as `script.php` on its own will usually fail because cron does not run from your web directory.

**You are flooded with cron emails**: the script is producing output on every run. Add `>/dev/null` as shown above so only real errors reach your inbox, or `>/dev/null 2>&1` to silence the job completely.

**The site slows down or the job overlaps itself**: you have scheduled it too frequently. Leave enough time between runs for the previous one to finish, and avoid one-minute intervals unless the task genuinely needs them.

**The Cron Jobs icon is missing**: cron access can be switched off at the plan level. If you do not see it in the **Advanced** section, contact the Noiz support team.

If you are unsure which command to schedule, or a cron job is not behaving as expected, contact the Noiz support team and they will be glad to help you set it up.

---
Source: https://docs.noiz.ie/cpanel/how-to-create-a-cron-job-in-cpanel/