How to Edit Cron Jobs in Linux with the crontab Command

Updated: 12 October 2026 · Applies to: cron 3.0pl1 on Debian 13 and Ubuntu 26.04, cronie 1.7.0 on AlmaLinux 10.2 (tested); cronie is also the cron on Rocky Linux and RHEL

To edit cron jobs in Linux, run crontab -e. It opens your crontab in a text editor; change, add or remove lines, then save and close the editor. The crontab command checks the file, prints crontab: installing new crontab and cron uses the new version from the next minute, with no restart. To edit another user's cron jobs, run sudo crontab -u USERNAME -e. To list them first, run crontab -l (a lower-case L, not the number 1).

Quick reference

• Edit your cron jobs: crontab -e
• Edit another user's: sudo crontab -u alice -e
• Edit root's: sudo crontab -e
• Use a different editor once: EDITOR=nano crontab -e
• Choose the default editor (Debian, Ubuntu): select-editor
• Back up before a big change: crontab -l > ~/crontab.bak
• Check a crontab file without installing it: crontab -n FILE (Debian, Ubuntu) or crontab -T FILE (AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, RHEL)

1. Open your crontab

Run crontab -e as the user who owns the jobs. On Debian and Ubuntu, the first time you run it without an editor set, you are asked to pick one:

$ crontab -e
no crontab for root - using an empty one
Select an editor.  To change later, run select-editor again.
  1. /bin/nano        <---- easiest
  2. /usr/bin/vim.tiny

Choose 1-2 [1]:

The list depends on the editors installed. Your choice is saved in ~/.selected_editor; run select-editor to change it. On AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux and RHEL there is no menu: crontab opens vi unless you set an editor.

• nano: press Ctrl+O and Enter to save, then Ctrl+X to close. The keys are listed at the bottom of the screen.
• vi or vim: press i to start typing, Esc when you are done, then type :wq and press Enter. :q! closes without saving.

2. Use the editor you want

crontab reads the VISUAL and EDITOR variables. When both are set, VISUAL wins; we tested this on Debian 13, Ubuntu 26.04 and AlmaLinux 10.

EDITOR=nano crontab -e                      # this time only
echo 'export EDITOR=nano' >> ~/.bashrc     # from your next login on

If the editor you set is not the one that opens, check whether VISUAL is set: echo $VISUAL. An editor command with options also works; crontab passes the options on.

3. Change a job and save

Each job is one line: minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week, then the command. To move a nightly backup from 03:00 to 02:30, change

0 3 * * * /root/backup.sh

to

30 2 * * * /root/backup.sh

Save and close the editor. The result looks like this:

crontab: installing new crontab

If you close the editor without changing anything, Debian and Ubuntu print No modification made and AlmaLinux prints crontab: no changes made to crontab; nothing is changed. To pause a job without losing it, put # in front of the line. On Debian and Ubuntu a new crontab starts with a block of comment lines that explain the fields; you can leave them.

Common schedules (all passed the syntax check on both cron versions):

* * * * *      /usr/local/bin/task.sh    # every minute
*/5 * * * *    /usr/local/bin/task.sh    # every 5 minutes
30 * * * *     /usr/local/bin/task.sh    # every hour at minute 30
0 3 * * *      /usr/local/bin/task.sh    # every day at 03:00
0 0 * * MON    /usr/local/bin/task.sh    # every Monday at 00:00
0 0 1 */6 *    /usr/local/bin/task.sh    # 1 January and 1 July at 00:00

For the full syntax and how to read existing jobs, see how to list cron jobs and read crontab syntax. To add a first job step by step, see how to add jobs to cron.

4. If crontab rejects your edit

crontab checks the file before it installs it. A wrong value, such as minute 61, gives this on Debian and Ubuntu:

crontab: installing new crontab
"/tmp/crontab.g0zX2k/crontab":25: bad minute
errors in crontab file, can't install.
Do you want to retry the same edit? (y/n)

and this on AlmaLinux:

crontab: installing new crontab
"/tmp/crontab.AU0ebl":3: bad minute
Invalid crontab file, can't install.
Do you want to retry the same edit? (Y/N)

The number after the file name is the line with the problem. Answer y to go back into the editor with your changes, or n to keep the old crontab. Your old jobs keep running either way.

To check a crontab file before you install it, use crontab -n FILE on Debian and Ubuntu (it prints The syntax of the crontab file was successfully checked.) or crontab -T FILE on AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux and RHEL. Do not use -n there: on cronie it sets a cluster host name instead of checking anything.

5. Edit another user's cron jobs

sudo crontab -u alice -e
sudo crontab -u alice -l

sudo crontab -e without -u edits root's crontab, not yours, which is a common reason for "my job disappeared". The files are stored in /var/spool/cron/crontabs/USERNAME on Debian and Ubuntu and in /var/spool/cron/USERNAME on AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux and RHEL. Do not edit them there by hand; crontab -e checks the syntax and sets the right owner and permissions.

6. Edit cron jobs without an interactive editor

In scripts or over a slow connection, pipe the crontab through a command and install the result with crontab -:

crontab -l > ~/crontab.bak                                   # back up
crontab -l | sed 's|/root/backup.sh|/root/backup.sh --full|' | crontab -   # change a line
(crontab -l; echo '*/15 * * * * /usr/local/bin/check.sh') | crontab -        # add a line
crontab ~/crontab.bak                                        # restore the backup

This worked on all three systems, also for a user who had no crontab yet. crontab FILE replaces the whole crontab with the file, so keep the backup until you have checked the result with crontab -l. On AlmaLinux, cronie 1.7 also saves the previous version on every change and tells you so: Backup of root's previous crontab saved to /root/.cache/crontab/crontab.bak.

7. System-wide cron files

/etc/crontab and the files in /etc/cron.d/ are not edited with crontab -e. Open them with sudo nano /etc/cron.d/FILE. Their lines have an extra field after the day of week: the user the command runs as, for example */5 * * * * www-data /usr/bin/php /var/www/app/cron.php. According to the cron manuals, both cron versions notice changes to these files, so no restart is needed here either. On Debian and Ubuntu, a file in /etc/cron.d/ must be owned by root and its name may contain only letters, digits, hyphens and underscores: backup-site runs, backup.cron is ignored.

8. Check that the change worked

1. Run crontab -l and read the line again.
2. Wait until the next run time. In our test, a job added while cron was running ran at the start of the next minute.
3. Check the log: journalctl -u cron on Debian and Ubuntu, journalctl -u crond on AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux. How to list all cron jobs for all users covers this and shows every place a job can hide.

Deleting jobs: careful with -r

To remove one job, delete its line in crontab -e. crontab -r deletes all your cron jobs at once, without asking, and the R key is next to E on the keyboard. crontab -ri asks first:

$ crontab -ri
crontab: really delete root's crontab? (y/n)

On cPanel hosting you edit cron jobs on the Cron Jobs page instead: see cron jobs in cPanel and the video edit or delete a cron job in cPanel. On Plesk, see edit or delete scheduled tasks in Plesk.

Official documentation: crontab manual page (Debian).