> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.savemydb.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Schedules

> How backup job schedules work.

savemydb uses cron-style schedules, giving you full control over exactly when backups run.

## Quick presets

The job creation form includes common presets you can use without writing a schedule manually:

| Preset        | Runs                            |
| ------------- | ------------------------------- |
| Daily at 2am  | Once a day, at 2:00 AM          |
| Every 6 hours | At 12am, 6am, 12pm, and 6pm     |
| Weekly        | Once a week, Sunday at midnight |

## Custom schedules

For anything else, use the visual schedule builder, or switch to custom mode and enter a schedule directly.

Schedules use six fields, in this order:

```
second  minute  hour  day  month  weekday
```

<Warning>
  Always set the seconds field to `0` unless you specifically need sub-minute precision. A schedule like `* */2 * * * *` runs every single second during even-numbered minutes — almost never what's intended. The correct schedule for "every 2 minutes" is `0 */2 * * * *`.
</Warning>

## Examples

| Schedule         | Runs                               |
| ---------------- | ---------------------------------- |
| `0 0 2 * * *`    | Daily at 2:00 AM                   |
| `0 0 */6 * * *`  | Every 6 hours                      |
| `0 30 9 * * 1-5` | Weekdays at 9:30 AM                |
| `0 0 0 1 * *`    | Midnight on the 1st of every month |

## Choosing a frequency

For most production databases, daily backups are a reasonable starting point. Increase frequency for databases with high write volume where losing more than a day of data would be costly, and reduce it for databases that change infrequently, to limit storage usage.