Schedules

Learn how to automatically start your actor and task runs and the basics of cron expressions. Set up and manage your schedules from Apify Console or via API.

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Schedules allow you to run your actors and tasks at specific times. You schedule the run frequency using cron expressions.

Schedules allow timezone settings and support daylight saving time shifts (DST).

You can set up and manage schedules from Apify Console and via API (also with the JavaScript and Python API clients). When scheduling a new actor or task run, you can override its input settings using a JSON object similarly to when invoking a schedule using the Apify API.

In most cases, scheduled events are fired within one second of their scheduled time.
Occasionally, however, runs can be delayed because of a system overload or a server shutting down.

Each schedule can be associated with a maximum of 10 actors and 10 actor tasks.

Setting up a new schedule

Before setting up a new schedule, you should have the Actor or task whose run you want to schedule prepared and tested.

If you are planning to schedule an Actor run, you need to use the Actor before you can schedule any runs. Navigate to the Actor's page in Apify Store, click the Try for free button, then Start it with your preferred settings.

Your schedule's name should be 3-63 characters long.

From Apify Console

In Apify Console, click on the Schedules button in the left-side menu, then click the Create new button.

In the Settings tab, give your schedule a memorable name, add a description, and choose how often you would like your actor or task to run using the schedule setup tool.

Next, you'll need to give the schedule something to run. This is where the Actor or task you prepared earlier comes in. Switch to the Actors and Tasks tab, and click the Add [new] button.

If you're scheduling an Actor run, you'll be able to specify the Actor's input and running options like build, timeout, memory. The timeout value is specified in seconds; a value of 0 means there is no timeout, and the Actor runs until it finishes.

If you don't provide an input, then the Actor's default input is used. If you provide an input with some fields missing, the missing fields are filled in with values from the default input. If input options are not provided, the default options values are used.

If you're scheduling a task, just select the task you prepared earlier using the drop-down. If you need to override the task's input, you can pass it as a JSON object in the Input JSON overrides field.

To add more actors or tasks, just repeat the process.

You can add a maximum of 10 actors and 10 tasks to each schedule.

Now, all you need to do is click Save & activate and let the scheduler take care of running your jobs on time.

For integrations, you can also add a webhook to your tasks, which will notify you (or perform an action of your choice) every time the task runs.

Via API

To create a new schedule using the Apify API, send a POST request to the create schedule endpoint.

You can find your secret API token in your Apify account's Integrations tab. When providing your API authentication token, we recommend using the request's Authorization header, rather than the URL. (More info).

In the POST request's payload should be a JSON object specifying the schedule's name, your user ID, and the schedule's actions.

The below JSON object creates a schedule which runs an SEO audit of the Apify domain once a month.

{
  "name": "apify-domain-monthly-seo-audit",
  "userId": "7AxwNO4kCDZxsMHip",
  "isEnabled": true,
  "isExclusive": true,
  "cronExpression": "@monthly",
  "timezone": "UTC",
  "description": "A monthly audit of the Apify domain's SEO",
  "actions": [
    {
      "type": "RUN_ACTOR_TASK",
      "actorTaskId": "6rHoK2zjYJkmYhSug",
      "input": {
        "startUrl": "https://apify.com"
      }
    }
  ]
}

If the request is successful, you will receive a 201 HTTP response code and a JSON object in the response body containing the details of your new schedule. If you receive an error (4** code), you will need to check your API token, user ID, or POST request body.

You can add multiple actor and task runs to a schedule with a single POST request. Simply add another object with the run's details to the actions array in your POST request's payload object.

For more information, see the schedules section in the API documentation.

Schedule setup

The schedule setup tool uses cron expressions to specify run times. If you're familiar with how to use them and need a specific run schedule, you can dive right in. If not, don't worry - the setup tool has a visual custom schedule builder that provides a similar level of control as cron expressions, though it's not quite as powerful.

The Next runs section at the bottom shows when the next five runs will be. You can use this live feedback to experiment until you find the correct configuration.

You can find more information and examples of cron expressions on crontab.guru. For additional and non-standard characters, see this Wikipedia article.

Cron expressions

A cron expression has the following structure:

Position	Field	Values	Wildcards	Optional
1	second	0 - 59	, - * /	yes
2	minute	0 - 59	, - * /	no
3	hour	0 - 23	, - * /	no
4	day of month	1 - 31	, - * /	no
5	month	1 - 12	, - * /	no
6	day of week	0 - 7 (0 or 7 is Sunday)	, - * /	no

For example, the expression 30 5 16 * * 1 will start an actor at 16:05:30 every Monday.

The minimum interval between runs is 10 seconds; if your next run is scheduled sooner than 10 seconds after the previous run, the next run will be skipped.

Examples of cron expressions

• 0 8 * * * - every day at 8am.
• 0 0 * * 0 - every 7 days (at 00:00 on Sunday).
• */3 * * * * - every 3rd minute.
• 0 0 1 */2 * - every other month (at 00:00 on the first day of month, every 2nd month).

Additionally, you can use the following shortcut expressions:

• @yearly = 0 0 1 1 * - once a year, on Jan 1st at midnight.
• @monthly = 0 0 1 * * - once a month, on the 1st at midnight.
• @weekly = 0 0 * * 0 - once a week, on Sunday at midnight.
• @daily = 0 0 * * * - run once a day, at midnight.
• @hourly = 0 * * * * - on the hour, every hour.

Sharing

You can invite other Apify users to view or modify your schedules with the access rights system. See the full list of permissions.