PHP and Cron: Automating your web tasks the smart way

How to use cron jobs with PHP to automate repetitive tasks on your server

Photo by Carlos Muza on Unsplash

In modern web development, automation is more than a convenience — it’s a necessity. Whether you’re sending scheduled emails, cleaning up expired sessions, or running batch data processing, automation helps you focus on what matters. One of the most powerful and time-tested ways to automate backend tasks is by combining PHP and Cron jobs.

In this article, we’ll explore how PHP and Cron work together, common use cases, and how to implement them safely and efficiently.

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What Is Cron?

Cron is a time-based job scheduler available on Unix-like operating systems. It allows you to run commands or scripts at fixed intervals — every minute, hour, day, or any custom schedule you define.

A Cron job is typically defined in a crontab file. Here’s a quick example:

* * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/scripts/cleanup.php

This tells the system to run the PHP script cleanup.php every minute.

Why Use PHP with Cron?