How to Schedule Workflows in n8n

Open your workflow in the n8n editor. Click the plus button on the canvas and search for Schedule Trigger. Add it as the first node in your workflow. If your workflow already has a different trigger node, you can have multiple triggers in the same workflow. The Schedule Trigger node replaces the older Cron node, which is deprecated in n8n 1.0+. Connect the Schedule Trigger output to the first processing node in your workflow.

Click the Schedule Trigger node to open its settings. Select the trigger interval type. For simple use cases, choose a preset interval: every minute, every 5 minutes, every 15 minutes, every hour, every day, or every week. This is the easiest way to set up recurring execution. For daily or weekly intervals, you can also set the specific time of day when the workflow should run.

1// Schedule Trigger node — simple interval examples
2// Run every 5 minutes:
3//   Trigger Interval: Minutes
4//   Minutes Between Triggers: 5
5
6// Run every hour:
7//   Trigger Interval: Hours
8//   Hours Between Triggers: 1
9
10// Run every day at 9:00 AM:
11//   Trigger Interval: Days
12//   Days Between Triggers: 1
13//   Trigger at Hour: 9
14//   Trigger at Minute: 0

For more complex schedules, switch the Schedule Trigger to Cron mode. Cron expressions use five fields: minute, hour, day of month, month, and day of week. This lets you create schedules like every weekday at 8:30 AM or the first day of every month at midnight. Each field accepts numbers, ranges, wildcards, and step values.

1// Cron expression format:
2// ┌───────── minute (0-59)
3// │ ┌─────── hour (0-23)
4// │ │ ┌───── day of month (1-31)
5// │ │ │ ┌─── month (1-12)
6// │ │ │ │ ┌─ day of week (0-7, 0 and 7 = Sunday)
7// │ │ │ │ │
8// * * * * *
9
10// Every weekday at 8:30 AM
11// 30 8 * * 1-5
12
13// Every Monday and Thursday at 6:00 PM
14// 0 18 * * 1,4
15
16// First day of every month at midnight
17// 0 0 1 * *
18
19// Every 15 minutes during business hours (9 AM - 5 PM)
20// */15 9-17 * * *

By default, n8n uses the server's timezone for scheduling. If your server is in UTC but you want the workflow to run at 9 AM Eastern Time, you need to set the timezone. In the Schedule Trigger node settings, look for the Timezone field and select your target timezone from the dropdown. For self-hosted n8n, you can also set the GENERIC_TIMEZONE environment variable to change the default timezone for all workflows.

1# Set default timezone for all workflows (environment variable)
2export GENERIC_TIMEZONE=America/New_York
3
4# Or in docker-compose.yml
5environment:
6  - GENERIC_TIMEZONE=America/New_York
7  - TZ=America/New_York

The Schedule Trigger only works when the workflow is activated. Toggle the Active switch in the top-right corner of the editor to activate it. After activation, check the Executions tab to verify that the workflow is running at the expected times. The first execution happens at the next scheduled interval after activation, not immediately. If you want to test the workflow first, use the Execute Workflow button for a manual run before activating.